


Deep In The Heart

by ScotlandEvander



Series: Various States [1]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Acceptance, Alternate Universe, Angst, Cat Loki, Depression, Gen, Good Loki, Loki Feels, Lokitty, Male-Female Friendship, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 17:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScotlandEvander/pseuds/ScotlandEvander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki fell from the Bifrost and found himself stuck as a cat in a strange place. He had a collar, a bed, and something called a litter box. When he thought things could get no stranger, he discovered something quite mystifying that made him realize he'd fallen a lot farther than he'd originally figured.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's Like a Whole Other Country

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do no own anything pertaining to Thor (whose story was created by J. Micheal Straczynski and Mark Protoseivh) or anything else you might recognize. “Deep in The Heart of Texas” written by Gene Autry. 
> 
> A/N: 7 May 2013 - There are OCs in this story, only one is important. None of the actual other movie characters appear in the story, from Thor or The Avengers. They are spoken of often, but they won’t appear in this story. This is the first story of a series currently called Various States. 

* * *

_I can feel my world crumbling / I can feel my life crumbling away / I can feel my soul crumbling away and falling away_

_-Muse, “Falling Away With You”_

* * *

  _No, Loki._

The two words ran through is mind, shattering his world into tiny, sharp pieces of metal that cut into his bone, searing and dragging white hot pain into the depths of his being.  

Realization dawned quite clear for Loki as he stared at the man he had called Father. 

He would never be good enough.

Never would anyone’s approval belong to Loki Laufeyson.  

_No, Loki._

He had been loosing his grip, struggling to hold on to the slippery staff. Loki allowed his hand to unclench.

“Loki, no!” Thor roared.

Loki paid no heed to Thor, keeping his eyes locked upon the Allfather, unable to clearly read anything in the lone eye the man used to see. Loki let go, staring blankly at Thor and the shattered remains of the Rainbow Bridge. Both grew smaller and smaller till Loki rolled so he could no longer see what used to be home. 

He had no home. 

Closing his eyes, Loki allowed his heart to shatter into a million jagged pieces. He felt his heart’s broken pieces scatter. The white hot pain of rejection, the deep blue of sadness, the raging red of revenge, the green of envy, the black of anger— they all fractured around him and he knew no more as the nothingness of the abyss hugged him like a lost son.    

* * *

_I close my eyes / Thought I was lost but I was stranded / I go outside / To my surprise the sky had landed_

_-Something Corporate, “Fall”_

* * *

 His nose suddenly was keen. Due to the fact he’d just fallen into the nothingness between realms, he ought not to be smelling anything. The moment he’d let go of Gungnir, nothing reached his nose, eyes, fingers, or anything beyond his internal dolor. 

And then there was nothing. 

It was blissful in a sense, feeling nothing. 

This was not abyss, as it smelled. Grass, heat, ozone, animals, scents Loki did not know and familiar scents such as juniper, sage, cedar and pine. This place smelled quite a bit like home and somewhere he’d never been. 

It always felt. The ground was hard, he was surrounded by a material that felt like the cloth of his cape. 

Cracking an eye open he found he could see again and it was indeed his cape covering his face. He moved his head to the side, allowing his eyes to take in the scenery. Scanning, he doubted any sort of afterlife looked like the scene greeting his eyes.

He was in neither Hel or Valhalla. 

Clearly, he was somewhere in between.

Or somewhere else all together. 

Loki pushed himself up with his hands, feeling the cape fall off his head completely. 

The ground felt odd here. He’d never felt ground such as this before— and he was well traversed. 

“What the hell…”

Loki froze. He heard movement above his head somewhere that sounded much larger than he currently was. He looked to his left and right and frowned. Everything was a lot larger than Loki currently was sized. He was clearly in a land made for giants. He’d fit right in being a Frost Giant midget.

“Look at this, Dell,” the voice went on above his head. 

“What?” another voice asked. 

“It’s a perfectly made cosplay costume,” the first voice announced. “What’s it just doing lying on the side of the trail?”

A face suddenly appeared right before Loki with huge light green eyes. The face, female if going by the soft angles and abundance of hair, scanned the rather large sized clothing Loki was currently rather tangled up within. 

“There’s a cat in that pile, Jess,” the second voice announced.

A cat? Where?

“Bloody hell. There is a freaky cat in the Loki costume.”

“Loki costume? What are you talking about?”

“This is a perfect replica of what Hiddles wore in _Thor_ ,” Green Eyes announced, turning her head to address the other voice. 

Green Eyes was huge. And where was this cat? Loki tried to stand and failed to really get any taller. The ground was still rather close and he was…

“I mean, I bet this is nicer than the actual costume. Look at this craftsmanship and the detail in the armor,” Green Eyes went on, fingering the edge of cloth that appeared to be a super sized version of Loki’s cape. She reached over and picked up a piece of gold armor and turned it over in her hands. Loki reached up to snatch it back.

Wait a second…why was his hand a black paw? 

“I mean…the detail…carvings…stitching…gleam…why…like, where…why would…what? What? What?”

Green Eyes continued to sort through the pile of cloth, metal and leather Loki was standing within…as a cat.

He was a cat. Why was he a cat? 

“It’s not…what? Where…what is…What? Ohmygod. This….whoa….how can….is that really? Wow….that’s…oh…”

“Jess, mind forming an actual sentence? And get away from it, okay? What if it’s got rabies or something?”

“The costume or the cat?”

“Both! It could have fleas. Poncho had fleas once, remember?”

“No. I think I might have deleted that. I remember when he got sprayed by a skunk, though,” Green Eyes said, running her fingers over the material that had been Loki’s trousers. 

Before he turned into a cat.

Normally, Loki would not allow someone else to touch his things, let alone his clothing, but in his current cat-like state, he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

He was a forsaken cat for crying out loud. 

Maybe he’d died and had been reborn a kitten?

“Seriously, look at this. It’s not any kind of metal I’ve seen before or cloth. It’s so freaky.”

Didn’t explain why his clothing was in a heap around him, though. Or why he remembered his past life so clearly. 

“And you’ve seen a lot of metal and cloth in your days,” the girl called Dell inquired, sarcasm dripping in her tone.

“Yes. I had a mouth full of metal for six years. And I wear clothing on a daily basis, thank you very much,” Jess the Green Eyed girl snarked back. She turned her attention back to the pile of clothing and yanked out a boot. “Wow. This is…huge. Whoever lost this must have been a pretty tall dude.”

She set the book down and picked up a few more pieces of armor, one being his chest plate. 

“I’m pretty sure Loki’s second costume weighted something like thirty pounds— this is clearly a replica of the first movie. Not enough leather, more cloth-like material. Less weight. Do you see the helmet? It’ll have shorter horns because he’s his ego is still somewhat in check.”

Jess stood up and stepped over Loki and his pile of clothing. Loki did not want to look behind him as he’d spot he had a tail. He could feel his tail twitching behind him. He had no desire to see that.

Loki was a cat.

Why was he a cat? 

Loki reached for his magic and found none. He had tapped his entire reserve at some point. Likely due to this place he’d crash landed on. Realm? Planet? Rock? Where was he? 

“No helmet,” Dell said. “Can we go? I’ll call animal control or something.”

“Aren’t you the girl who isn’t allowed to go to the shelter because you bring home stray, pathetic, diseased animals?”

Dell did not voice an answer. 

“You’re a crazy dog lady. Maybe I’ll be a crazy cat lady?” Jess went on, chuckling. “You’re right. No helmet. Bugger. I hate that helmet, but I’d love to have the complete costume.” There was a long pause before Jess added, “I’ll make an awesome cat lady. Come on, admit it.” 

Jess knelt down before Loki again, a soft look on her face as she studied him. She held out her hand. Her nails were a strange, vibrate green color. 

Strange. 

“Jess, you can hardly feed yourself. How are you gonna feed a cat?”

“Very carefully,” Jess said, still looking at Loki, meeting his gaze. 

Loki debated on what he ought to do. 

He was clearly on a strange world without magic and he was a stuck as a cat till his magic recovered from the trauma of…falling through the void/abyss/space/time/whatever. Loki was acutely aware of how hungry and tired he was as he wearily studied Jess’s hand. He couldn’t remember when he had last ate. Or slept. 

More than likely before Thor’s failed coordination. 

Jess’s hand was huge compared to him. 

Why was he so damn small all the time? Too small to be a proper Frost Giant. Too small to be a proper Asgaridan. Too small in this dumb realm/planet/place/whatever as a dumb cat. 

His eyelids drooped a bit and he stretched himself out slowly in his cat form without really thinking about it. Jess chuckled. 

“Now I know why they call it cat position,” she muttered. 

“You know, I’m not sure the hand sniff works with cats like it does with dogs,” Dell offered. 

“Well, it didn’t hurt did it?”

“He could have clawed you.”

Jess withdrew her hand. Jess got to her feet, her knees making a rather loud cracking noise (which made the woman groan). She put her hands on the small of her back and studied the pile. She glanced downward as Loki turned to gaze back up at the other woman.

Loki stared at her feet, which were encased in a pair of very bright orange…boots? Well, they weren’t a familiar form of footwear. And they were blindingly orange. Loki gazed up at her, taking in the odd arrangement of what passed for clothing she wore to go with the odd footwear. She had a lot of bare skin showing. 

Why was this person not dressed properly? She was showing off a lot of skin. What if someone attacked?

Loki turned his attention back to the pile behind him as Jess stepped around him and began to gather up the pile. 

Why had his clothing not transformed along with him? When he had transformed his shape before, his clothes always came along for the journey. 

“What are you doing? Remember the fleas?”

“Does that cat look like he’s itching?” Jess asked. “Plus, if I get fleas, I’ll just come to your house and give them to your dogs.”

“You will not.”

Jess snickered. 

Dell sighed deeply and began to help gather up Loki’s amour and clothing. Jess moaned a few times about the MIA helmet. Loki figured _MIA_ meant missing, as that was what his helmet was: missing. He had no idea where it’d gotten to after it was blasted off his head when Thor had destroyed the Rainbow Bridge and the Biforst.

 Loki had attempted to stop him and failed, the memory which made Loki’s stomach burn unhappily. 

“I’ll put an ad or something online— Twitter, Facebook, Google—  and say I found a Loki costume, the one from _Thor_ —” 

“You are such a geek to know that,” Dell muttered.

“— and a cat with freaky green eyes. If you’d like these things back, call me maybe.”

Dell groaned. “Okay. That joke is so over.”

“Is not.”

The sound of the two women gathering up Loki’s clothing filled the air around him. He backed up a bit as the two moved around, eyeing them with slight distrust. 

“You know, the cat’s eyes match yours. That same freaky not really green or blue color you’ve got going for you.”

“Sea foam green I call it. Or at least that’s the crayon I always used,” Jess proclaimed, studying a gauntlet. She shuffled around the pile of cloth, leather, and metal in her arms. “No fleas. Or bed bugs. In fact, it looks pretty clean. And smells kind of nice. Kind of smells like a guy. Woodsy. Here sniff.”

“You sniffed it?”

“Duh. I sniff everything.”

“How could I forget? You’ve sniffed shampoo up your nose more times than I care to remember,” Dell grumbled.

“Oh, you’ve forgotten perfumes, body washes, body butters, soaps, lotions, face wash, scented oils…”

“Never let her go into The Body Shop,” Dell told Loki, kneeling down. Loki took a good look at Dell for the first time as she tentatively reached out to scratch his head. She was the exact opposite of Jess— wild black hair, light brown skin, dark brown eyes and was a head shorter than Jess when she stood up.

Loki gazed up at the women who stared back at him. One was pale, one dark. One with light green eyes, one with dark eyes. One with light hair, one with dark hair. 

“You wanna come with me or stay here?” Jess asked. “Either way, I’m taking the costume. I mean, seriously, why would someone spend all that money and/or time on this thing and just leave it in a random pile along side a trail in Texas where _the stars at night/are big and bright…_ ”

“ _Deep in the heart of Texas_ ,” Dell finished singing, holding the pile of Loki’s clothing to her chest. “This is heavy. Come on.”

“So, what do you say?” Jess asked, kneeling down again. 

Jess held her hand out again and waited for Loki to do something. He did not want to be carried by this woman, nor did he want to spend time with her. He mostly wanted to be alone. But, he was a cat and he was tried, thirsty, and hot. This Texas place was much more hot than Asgard. He eyed Jess’s hand. He butted his head against it and waited for her to scoop him up. Instead she quickly scratched behind his ears and stood.

Loki was still on the ground.

“Come along, Loki.”

How had she known his name?

Jess turned around and walked off down a path, leaving Dell and Loki behind.

“Jessica Witton, cats do not follow you like a dog!”

“Well, he clearly didn’t want to be picked up. Just like Mars. I already got a paw to the face for trying to pick up an animal today,” Jess replied, pausing. “And I thought you wanted to get going. Isn’t Benedict going to be home soon and want his dinner?”

Dell didn’t answer the question, instead eyeing Loki.

“You really gonna call him Loki?” Dell asked.

“We did find him buried under a Loki costume,” Jess said. “You rather I call him Hiddles?”

“God, no. It’s bad enough you usually refer to Ben as Benedict,” Dell said, nose wrinkling. 

“Not my fault his parents named him after my favorite British actor of the moment,” Jess replied. 

“His name is _Benwah_ , not Benedict. He’s French,” Dell sighed tiredly.

“Yes, Benoit is French for Benedict, duh.”

“You pronounced it wrong, again. It’s pronounced Ben-WAH, not Ben-OIT”

“I went to Beloit, not Bel- _wah_. Hence, my pronunciation is correct ,” Jess laughed.

“God, I wish I wasn’t American so I could grumble about you Americans and your mispronunciation of words,” Dell grumbled. 

Ah, Loki was in Texas where Americans lived, not French. 

Not that Loki had any idea what that meant. He’d never heard of Texas, Americans or French. 

“Come on, Loki. I actually have a can of tuna to feed you.”

“Can you feed cats people tuna?”

“Dude, you feed your dogs margaritas and processed cheese.”

“Mars loves cheese!” Dell said, starting after Jess.

Loki was not sure if he was mad he had not been picked up or mad he was excepted to simply follow. As the they turned a corner and vanished from view, Loki started after the two girls (or women, Loki was having trouble gaging their ages), knowing he couldn’t sit along the trail forever. He needed to figure out where in the Nine Realms he was (besides Texas where Americans lived and not French) and his next move. He could not go home to Asgard, not after what he’d done. There was nothing left there for him.

He had killed his birth father and attempted to destroy his home world. 

He had no family. He had no home. 

Shaking his cat head, he broke into a trot to keep up with the females. 

* * *

_Sometimes, that’s okay / Hear what others say / I’m here, standing hollow_

_-Korn, “Falling Away From Me_

* * *

 Loki recognized the large metal like object on wheels from when he’d sent the Destroyer after Thor during his brother’s banishment to Midgard. This one was smaller and a rather alarming shade of yellow. 

It was highly likely he was on Midgard— the only place Loki had seen the metal contraptions. 

Loki let out a curse, which came out sounding like an angry meow. Jess paused and peered at him in question. He glared at her and trotted passed her, sitting down near the yellow contraption Dell was busy dumping his clothing into. 

“All right, in you go, Loki,” Jess said opening the back door of the yellow contraption. He eyed at her for a moment before gracefully leaping. He landed on a soft surface and jumped again onto an even softer, slightly bouncy surface. 

“He’s going to get cat hair all over the seats,” Dell muttered. 

“Eh,” Jess said, closing the door. 

Loki sat down and waited. Two more doors opened in front of him and the two females got into the contraption. Jess sat behind a wheel of some sort. The front was covered in lots of dials and buttons, a few which Dell began to turn, though they yielded no results. Jess stuck something silver into the dash and turned it. 

Loki startled as several loud noises issued from the contraption, none of which were familiar to Loki’s cat ears. The noises were so loud, Loki was unable to hear what the two females were conversing about. Instead he threw his paws up over his ears and buried his head in the pile of clothes Jess had dumped next to him. He burrowed in and waited for the noise to stop.

The noise took a very long while to stop. By the time it finally stopped, Loki refused to move from his position under the pile of clothes. 

“What is wrong with him?” Dell asked. 

“I dunno. Loki, come on, we’re here.”

Loki did not move.

“Well, I’ve got to get dinner ready. See you later. I might give you a call to make sure you and the cat are still alive,” Dell said.

“Thanks. I doubt he’ll kill me,” Jess replied.

“I dunno…you named him after the guy who tried to take over the world and called us all ants,” Dell said, her voice fading. 

Loki poked his head out, but didn’t see where Dell had gone. Before he knew what was happening, Loki was scooped up. He tried to worm his way out of the grasp. Jess ignored his efforts as she started up some stairs. She walked down a walkway and used some sort of odd device to open a door. Upon entering, she dumped Loki on the floor and allowed the door to slam shut behind her. Loki tried to move away, but his paws slipped out from under him. He tried to stand still, but his paws slid forwards and backwards.

What fresh hell was this? 

“Try the carpet,” Jess suggested, pointing in front of her at a different type of surface.

Ignoring her, he attempted to move at top speed, only to have his paws completely fail him. He wound up on his belly. Jess chuckled, picked him up a little and dropped him onto a surface similar to the one in the metal contraption.

“Ah, the joys of traction,” Jess laughed, walking passed Loki, who was now sure footed. He carefully explored the area covered in carpet. 

There was not much. 

Her dwelling was rather small. Even from Loki’s view as a cat. 

“Here. Water. Tuna. Don’t die on me, please,” she said, setting down two small bowls near the edge of the carpet and another area with the evil slippery surface. “I’m not putting the food on the carpet, so you’re gonna have to figure out how to walk on this fake wood stuff. If you drink and eat like Mars or Poncho, I’ll be paying for new carpet when I move out of here.”

Jess stood back up, knees not cracking this time, and wandered off. Loki carefully approached the bowls, sniffing. He had no idea what tuna happened to be, but it smelled like the fish that sometimes found its way to the feasting tables. He carefully took a bite and decided it was all right. 

* * *

_Loose ends tangle down / And then take flight / But never tie us down / But never tie us down / Off I go / Where I fall is where I land_

_-Greg Laswell, “Off I Go”_

* * *

 

“So, I guess I’ll need a bed and litter box for you. Gross. Why can’t cats just go outside like dogs?” Jess asked, taking a seat at a table with a strange object sitting on the middle attached to various things with odd looking cords. 

Loki eyed it for a moment. The table was located on the slippery surface, opposite the cooking area and where Jess had put his food and water. Curiosity getting the best of him, Loki used the last bit of carpet and leapt onto Jess’s lap and then onto the table to investigate the odd object. He hit it with his paw, but nothing happened. 

“I could get you a leash, collar and some bags,” Jess said, moving him away from the object. “Then I wouldn’t have to figure out where to put a litter box…no room in the bathroom. Plus, gross. It like needs its own room. Not that I have room. Oh, what was I thinking bringing a cat home. I’m turning into Dell. Soon, I’ll be banned from going to the pound. Not that I got you at a pound.” 

Loki turned and stared at her as she ignored him and the odd object in front of her. She was writing in a book of some sort, making a list of items. Loki pawed at the odd flat object sitting in front of the taller object with cords. It was filled with what appeared to be letters of some sort. Loki didn’t recognize them, but they looked somewhat familiar. 

Upon pawing this object, the taller one lit up. Loki backed up several paces. 

“Bah. Okay. Whatever,” Jess said, still writing her list. “Cat food is just gross. Most pet food is gross. How do you eat it?”

She looked up finally and peered at Loki. He attempted to shrug, but wasn’t sure if he pulled it off.

“Did you just shrug at me? Do cats shrug?”

Loki shrugged again. 

“Dude, you’re so my cat,” Jess commented, looking back at the list. “Well, I guess we ought to go to the pet store. DUDE! I can take you with me! People take their dogs, I’m so taking my cat.” 

Without any warning, Jess gathered Loki up off the desk. She grabbed a few other things Loki didn’t see before she was out of the dwelling heading for the yellow metal thing. Loki attempted to escape (he had no desire to go in that thing again), but failed. Jess got in on the side with the wheel and dumped him in the seat Dell had used before. Loki got into position and waited for the loud noise. It happened again, but sounded differently sitting in a different seat. 

“I know car rides suck,” Jess commented, turning the wheel and staring out the window in front. “I wonder how they sound to a cat. Dell kept all the a/c on high and radio on loud last ride.”

Suddenly there was a lot less noise. Loki slowly raised his head up.

“The a/c in this stupid car has two settings. Off and full blast. So in the summers, if you want music, you gotta turn the radio on loud it hear it over the air. Stupid cheap car. Not that I can afford much else working at Sephora peddling makeup,” Jess babbled on.

Jess continued speaking for the entire time they were in the car. Loki discovered, besides working at Sephora (whatever that was), she had a useless piece of paper, she hated French Connection, Communism would never work because people were greedy, Urban Decay made the best eyeshadow and primer, capitalism and some guy named Ed were plotting against her, she hated Dior mascara, and she was still up in the air about HD foundation as well as her stance on barbecue sauces. 

“True Texas BBQ has no sauces. But, I just can’t really get on board with lackign sauce,” she argued. “Oh, and don’t get me started on ice tea verse sweet tea. Did you know that at Chick-fil-a they call it diet tea? Just plain tea equates diet tea. Welcome to America! Granny always told me I’m not a proper Southerner because I can’t stand sweet tea. I’m pretty sure Texas doesn’t think it’s part of the South. It’s Texas. Granny forgot she wasn’t in Georgia anymore.” 

 The contraption came to a stop. She turned it off and scooped Loki back into her arms. He made an angry noise, which she ignored, and walked towards a building that smelled strongly of other animals. 

Must be the pet store.

His nose was assaulted with an array of scents, none of which Loki enjoyed. He made a noise in the back of his throat that came out sounding like an angry purr. 

He just purred.

How embarrassing.

Jess glanced down at him and chuckled. “Yeah. Not my kind of joint either, Loke.”

Loke?

“I guess you need a collar. Which one do you want?”

Loki was jostled in her arms till he was hanging in front of the human, before an array of collars in varying shades and patterns. He blinked his green eyes a few times, wondering what she wanted him to do.

“Pick one.”

Loki craned his head around to glare at her. Huffing, he turned and stared at the display of collars till he found one that was acceptable. He pointed with his paw. After another jostling, Jess used her now free hand to grab the one Loki had pointed at. She turned to exit the area and came face to face with someone dressed rather badly. Loki deduced the person must work at the store, as the logo on the building was stitched on the shirt the person was sporting. Badly. 

“Did you just have your cat pick the collar out?” the human squeaked.

“Uh, yeah.”

The person looked rather disturbed. Jess shrugged, moved passed the person and headed off to another section of the store. 

“He acts like it’s not normal for cats to pick out their own collars,” Jess grumbled. “Granted, I guess it’s odd. Poncho and Mars don’t really pick much. Well, except if you give Mars a choice between cheese and anything. Always the cheese.”

Jess fell silent as she grabbed a few more random items, some of which she hung around Loki’s neck. She grabbed something that was cushy, then grabbed something that looked like a containment box. Loki hissed at the sight of the thing, which caused Jess to stare at him. He wormed his way out of her grasp and perched himself over her shoulder. Not the most comfortable, but it worked better than being held. 

“It’s for your outhouse, Loki. I’m not going to lock you up, you dork,” she muttered. “Now, let’s look at food.”

With her arms full, she headed for an area of the store that really smelled foul. Loki felt his nose curl a little and his tail soon followed. He let out an involuntary hiss.

“Agreed. Tuna might not be the best for you, but seriously. This stuff makes me want to barf and it’s not even open. You’ve yet to throw up the tuna, so we’ll just stick to tuna till I do some research on what else you can eat that isn’t actually cat food. Honestly, before we domesticated y’all, you didn’t live on processed cat food.”

Jess turned on her heel and stalked back towards a less smelly area of the store. She headed for the door, but did not exit. Instead, she dumped everything on some sort of moving belt, including Loki.

“Uh, ma’am? You’re cat is on the…”

“He’s fine. Just don’t ring him up like they do Maggie,” Jess said, digging through a bag she’d slung across her body at some point. Loki let out another angry meow at her, letting her know he didn’t like this moving belt or being dumped with all the cat items. She glanced up at him and said, “Oh, shut up.”

Loki hissed, but sat down and watched the person ‘ring’ the items up. Jess used some sort of card to purchase the items, gathered the bags and Loki up and left. Loki crawled out of her grasp and wrapped himself around her neck so he could paw at her head to show his annoyance. She ignored him till she dumped him back into the metal contraption. 

* * *

_Here and now  / Seems I’m standing on the edge / Looking down I can clearly see your face / In the crowd / Makes me feel I’m not alone_

_-Aqualung, “If I Fall”_

* * *

 


	2. Restart Your Engines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos! They're much appreciated.

 

* * *

_And there’s a demon in my brain / Who starts to play / A nightmare tape loop of what went wrong yesterday_

_-Third Eye Blind, “Narcolepsy”_

* * *

 “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a little bit depressed.”

Loki didn’t bother to open up his eyes to glare at the human. He felt her sit down on the other side of him where he’d collapsed in the sunshine earlier and hadn’t bothered to move once it had withdrawn. Loki felt her fingers begin to work through his fur on his back till she reached his ears. She began to lightly scratch. 

“You are lackadaisical, cranky, and have no interest in anything,” she went on. “How’d I’d end up with a depressed cat?”

Loki made no noise or movement. 

The first few days, he made an effort to try to rally up his anger and rage in order to plot and plan his revenge, but he found he had no want to do anything. He still had no idea where he was other than someplace called Texas where Americans lived, thus no idea how to return to Asgard if he had wanted.

He had no want to return to Asgard. 

He had no interest in anything, actually. 

It took Loki only a matter of days to loose all interest in maintaining his anger at the All-Father, Thor or anyone in Asgard who despised him, hated him and refused to acknowledge him in any manner.

He simply did not care. It was too much of a bother. 

Hating anything was too much effort. It was too hard to maintain the proper focus to dream of plots of revenge. It was almost too much to remember to eat the tuna Jess put out. 

Loki was, in fact quite depressed. 

Did gods get depressed? Loki had never heard of it before. There were not many health issues on Asgard. They were semi-immortal, warriors, and brutes. There was illness and injuries, but depression? It was highly likely no one other than Loki, the outsider, got introspective. 

It made perfectly sense Loki was the first of his kind to fall into a permeant melancholy state of being. 

“Do you know what I do when I’m down in the dumps?” Jess asked, lightly poking him in the side with a finger. Loki cracked an eyelid, glared at her, and swatted her with his claws. “Oh, shut it, you cranky cat. You’re a dude, you’ve got no right to have PMS.”

Jess had learned rather quickly that Loki was a rather tetchy cat and did not enjoy being touched.

She did it anyway. He didn’t mind the ear scratching or the petting, but the poking he could do without and let her know it. 

Of course, this meant she did it more. The fact her hand was covered in scratches did not bother her in the least.

Weirdo. 

Jess got her feet and threw herself onto the couch, picking up one of the things she insisted on calling a “clicker” even though it did not click and everyone else who stopped by the dwelling (Dell and her husband Ben( _noit_ or _edict_ , Loki wasn’t sure which his actual name happened to be really as he answered to anything resembling his name)) called it a “remote.” It did not seem very remote to Loki, but it did some sort of mortal magic of turning the flat viewing object, called a TV, on and change the picture. 

“Now, when I get saddish, I watch something uplifting. Like _Gilmore Girls_. But, you are a cat and you happen to be a guy. I doubt you’d enjoy such a girly show. I don’t know much about what guys like other than explosions and horrible things they call comedies which are mostly offensive,” Jess announced. Loki huffed. “Yeah, I know. There is so much more to life than explosions and boob jokes. Well, you’ve been here for awhile and haven’t introduced you to your namesake. Might as well do that.”

Jess hit buttons on the clicker remote and Loki cracked open his other eye, somewhat interested. During his time with Jess, he’d heard her mention the Loki character he was named after. Evidently in the fall (Loki had figured out this was another name for autumn) another movie (whatever that was) was coming out with the Tom Hiddleston as Loki, he had a new costume, and his hair style was a big deal. 

Loki rolled himself to his feet, stretched and ambled over to where Jess was seated, leaping up onto the couch. He sat down out of reach. 

“This is the first movie I saw Tom Hiddleston in,” Jess went on, still pointing the remote clicker at the TV. The image was changing rapidly as she searched for what she wanted. “I only decided to pay attention to him because his name kept popping up along side Benedict Cumberbatch on Pinterest. And then there were all these rather amusing memes with the Avengers, but I still had no clue what that was as I hadn’t seen the movie, nor did I till it came out on DVD. Anyways, I decided I’d watch _Thor_ one afternoon when I was having issues with editing and had had a horrible day at work.”

Jess left the house each morning to go to this “work” place, returning some eight hours later. After feeding herself and him, she then would either watch TV, or sit in front of the other flat screen device (a computer) and “write” using something she called a keyboard. Another odd looking device (for some reason called a mouse) was also needed to operate the machine. Loki, as a cat, had tried to use it a couple of time when he’d first arrived whilst Jess was away without any results. 

Then he gave up.

Loki wasn’t sure what she used the machine for. Dell often asked her how The Story was going, Ben(oit/edict) usually asked her how many people she gave clown faces to that day. Loki assumed the clown face comment was about her actual job while Dell’s comment had to do with the computer. Jess always waved at the computer when speaking about The Story. 

“So, Mr Loki Cat, let’s meet the character I named you after because you were wrapped up in his costume. Remind me to do something with that thing. I might need money for Christmas with the way my life is going at the moment. I spent the rest of my cash to see _Iron Man 3_ yesterday.”

Loki stared at her blankly before turning his attention back to the TV. 

He felt his hackles rise as he read the title of the movie along the bottom of the TV: THOR. 

“Oh, calm down, Grumpy Cat,” Jess sighed. “Man, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you _were_ Loki by that reaction.”

She laughed at herself, as she often did when he behaved in what he was guessing was un-catlike. While his un-catlike behavior upset Dell and Ben(oit/edict), Jess never seemed bothered. She enjoyed having an abnormal cat. 

Loki settled down and glared at the TV. 

Loki sat up a bit straighter after he read PUENTE ANTIGUO, NEW MEXICO.

That was where Thor had been banished. Loki had gone there, had viewed Thor get captured by the humans trying to get that blasted hammer. He narrowed his eyes as he watched the events unfold before him. He recognized the girl…that was the Midgardian Thor had become fond of…Jane? Was that her name?

What was this thing called a movie? It seemed to be a live-action story. Having paid no attention to what the TV object did, Loki was unsure, but curious. 

Loki jumped onto the table as the dark sky lit up on the TV. He had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what was about to happen. 

Sure enough, after a few minutes, Thor fell out of the sky through the Bifrost, landing in a heap and was hit by a metal contraption. Loki turned around to look at Jess, who was watching the movie and didn’t seem to find anything off about the events of Thor’s life unveiling before her. Loki turned back towards the screen at the sound of the All-Father’s voice telling a tale Loki had heard thousands of times before. Hearing it now, knowing he was in fact Jötunn, made his heart freeze over. He wanted to turn away, hide, but his eyes remained transfixed on the TV before him. He’d not seen the images to go along with the tale the movie was showing him. 

The tail left out a key element: Odin kidnapping Loki. 

Loki gasped (or the cat equivalent) at the sight of HIMSELF as a CHILD on the TV. 

What was this? How had these mortals captured this? 

What the hell did this TV actually do? Why had he not paid attention before? 

Loki’s mind was reeling. He wasn’t even listening, simply watching as the scene changed to the day of Thor was to become king, which Loki had ruined. It was just…so…

Wait, was that him? How _were_ these images captured? Loki did not remember anything strange happening that day, no human bits of technology around to record the events. How had the humans invaded Asgard to capture these events?

Anger welled up and Loki turned, launching himself at Jess.

Jess caught him and held him at arm’s length as his clawed and hissed at her. 

“Okay, so maybe not the best movie, but just give it a chance. Granted, there’s not a lot of Hiddleston at first, but…will you calm down, Furball? You wanna watch something else?”

Loki stopped trying to claw Jess’s face off and stared at her.

Hiddleston. She’d mentioned this name before in connection to himself. 

Jess set him back on the couch and he turned back to the screen. He watched the Jötnar in the weapons chamber and saw them destroyed. 

“You know, while I don’t agree with the method Loki used here, I do understand why he did it,” Jess suddenly said. “Oh, wait for this. Best facial reaction. There!”

Loki glanced at Thor, then back at Odin. Loki (the cat) wasn’t sure what Jess was talking about. 

“Thor is such a moron,” Jess muttered, as the scene changed to Thor destroying the dining room. 

It was so strange to witness the events of not so long ago unfold before his eyes just as Loki remembered, yet from an outsider’s point of view. 

“He always looks like he’s about to cry,” Jess commented.

Loki wasn’t sure who she was speaking about. He cut out her noise (she talked a lot, leaving Loki half wondering if she spoke this much before he entered her life, or if it was a new development) and put his entire focus on the movie. The whole thing played out the events of the past three days before from mostly Thor’s point of view, but it was still also Loki’s story. 

The story of how a villain was created, how a hero was born.

Loki watched himself, knowing it was clear on his face the moment he decided to let go and fall into the abyss. He curled into himself on the couch. The movie continued, showing Thor and Odin discussing Loki, Thor looking down on Jane, who gave up waiting for Thor to return in a timely manner, yet refused to give up on him and was searching for him. 

“I can’t wait to see how she reacts in _Thor 2_ , since he clearly didn’t visit her in _The Avengers_ ,” Jess said from behind Loki, making him leap up and fall off the couch. 

He had forgotten she was in the same room with him.

“Whoa, you okay?”

Jess carefully picked Loki up. He noted, maybe for the first time, the utmost care she took as she handled him. She looked at him and picked up one of the remote clickers on the coffee table. Loki turned his attention back to the screen, where names and words were scrolling by at a shocking pace. 

“There’s one bit left. Just a short,” Jess told the cat in her lap. “The Marvel movies all have these at the end. Well, I assume they do. I’ve never seen _The Hulk_. And the one at the end of _Captain America_ was really lame. The best ones are at the end of the first two Iron Man movies. But, watch.”

Loki did look and felt confused. 

“Last seen in _Captain America_ ,” Jess whispered, scratching Loki behind the ears. He jerked his head away as to not be distracted. 

Loki stared at the blue, glowing square in the silver suitcase. It looked very familiar. It was on the tip of his tongue what the name was for the blue square.

Loki didn’t dwell on it for long, as suddenly, he was there. 

Movie Loki wasn’t dead. He was standing there, right next to the older scientist. 

“I guess it’s worth a look,” the Loki in the movie said, looking honestly mentally unbalanced.

The last time Movie Loki had been seen, he had appeared heart broken and sad. How’d be become so…crazy? Okay, some of his more desperate moments Loki’s face on the TV had looked like that, but there was something else in his eyes now. 

The scientist repeated what Loki had just said, only a little slowly. 

“Look at his eyes,” Jess whispered, leaning forward. “I didn’t really notice that before.”

What? WHAT? Loki wanted to scream, as he knew he was missing something. 

“Do you need to see that again?” Jess asked, trying to parse out his strange behavior.

Oh, he was going a little nuts, wasn’t he? Loki sat down on the table while Jess frowned at him. She picked the clicker remote up and made the image move backwards.

“There,” she said.

Oh. Loki saw it now. 

The movie had been completely accurate till that last thing at the very end. 

Loki had not gone to visit the blue square— oh, the Cosmic Cube. Loki had _not_ done that. Had not influenced the scientist with magic to repeat what he’d said. 

That had NOT happened.

Loki was a cat. 

And he certainly hadn’t seen the Cosmic Cube recently.

And he didn’t know where he was, as this did not _feel_ like Midgard. Texas where they spoke American and not French did not _feel_ like Midgard at all.

Actually, he didn’t feel much of anything now that he thought about it except massively confused. 

“Blue! I bet he’s all ready under the influence of whatever that staff is made out of,” Jess commented, sitting back, tossing the remote clicker on the table. 

Loki made several cat noises. He was so frustrated. He clawed Jess in the thigh and jumped back to the table, hissing and spitting all over the place in his attempt to get her to explain herself. 

What staff?

What was the real deal with the blue eyes?

Where had the Cosmic Cube come from?

Who the hell was Captain America?

What was Iron Man? What was the Hulk? 

Why did they all have movies?

What was this movie thing?

Why was it about Thor’s life? Why was everything about THOR?

Where was he?

What magic was this?

Jess cocked her head to the side and stared at the cat, looking mildly concerned. 

“That clearly didn’t work how I thought it would. Least you are…showing emotions other than melancholy,” she muttered. “While I’d love to learn to speak cat tonight, I’ve got the early morning shift, which we both know I hate as that’s when all the old cranky ladies who wear too much foundation and way too red lipstick show up to be done over and then hate me when they look normal again.”

Loki made a few more noises of anger at her, as he did not care about her midadventures with her work. He had major problems with this movie thing she’d just shown him. 

“So, I’m going to sleep and pray that tomorrow you’re a normal cat. Not really. Stay strange.”

Jess patted him on the head and went into the bedchamber, shutting the door and forcing him to remain in the room with the TV. Loki remained sitting on the table seething till he was sure Jess had fallen asleep. For the first time since he’d arrived in this strange place, Loki felt around for his magic. 

It was there.

He felt his magic.

He still did not feel anything else. During his lifetime, he’d learned the feel of all nine realms. He could never describe the feelings, but he _felt_ them.

He felt nothing familiar— other than his magic.

Tapping into his magic, he transformed into his Asgardian from. He swayed a bit, then fell off the table with a rather loud thud.

Loki cursed under his breath, scrambling into a dark corner near the TV, waiting for Jess to wake and come see what had happened. When she never appeared, Loki stood up and swept towards the computer. He had hands and fingers now. He assumed this would aid greatly in the operation of the machine. 

Loki needed to know what, how, and where. 

Oh, wait, he was nude. Well, that wasn’t good.

Well, research now, clothing he’d worry about later.

* * *

 

  _The answers we find / Are never what we had in mind / So we make it up as we go along_

_-Nine Days, “If I Am”_

* * *

 It took him a few weeks to figure everything out. 

There was a whole movie that took place after _Thor_ that tied into the scene at the very end. There were other movies that were part of the “Marvel Universe.” Loki watched these for background information after seeing the first few minutes of _The Avengers_ and finding himself somewhat confused. 

After _Thor,_ _The Avengers_ was surreal to watch. Loki did not know himself as he watched Tom Hiddleston’s Loki attempt to take over the Earth.

Loki had no desire to rule anyone, let along the Midgardians.

And while he did think they were a bit foolish, he did not think they were ants. Nor that he was better than them. 

He did agree with Hiddleston’s Loki that they were both indeed monsters. 

Loki did, though, realize what Jess had been going on at the end of _Thor_. 

Blue eyes.

When Hiddleston’s Loki took control of someone’s mind in the movie, their eyes turned a cloudy blue color. Loki noticed during the scene in the glass cell, Hiddleston’s Loki had blue eyes.

Loki did not have blue eyes. 

Hiddleston’s Loki in _Thor_ did not have blue eyes (Loki had checked). 

Hiddleston’s Loki was indeed being controlled by an outside force.

And things began to fall into place. Loki, while not familiar with the craft of acting, was in fact familiar with the act of lying and creating a believable story. He recognized, after doing further research on Hiddleston, how the character of Loki developed after his fall from the Bifrost. If he himself had fallen into the hands of the Chitauri/The Other/Thanos and had been (as he likely suspected) forced into aiding them in getting the Cosmic Cube, Loki could see himself behaving as Hiddleston’s Loki had in _The Avengers_. While the character never lost that dry sense of humor throughout the movie, during the time he was indeed under the influence, his humor was more biting, bitter and angry.

The scene when Hiddleston’s Loki requested that drink struck a chord with Loki. It was something he would have done. Hiddleston’s Loki also seemed quite resigned to his fate. 

Between all Loki’s overly deep thinking about action movies, he also visited the actors that had portrayed his family and people he had known back on Asgard. He was amazed to find that while they bore a striking resemblance to those he knew, they were different. Hiddleston had bright blue eyes (naturally), curly blond hair and a very different hairline than Loki. His natural speaking voice was also vastly different from Loki’s natural speaking voice. Hiddleston tended to smile a little too much, thus had lines upon his face Loki would likely never have. 

The rest of the actors had similar differences from the characters they portrayed. Hair color, nose shape, eye color, cheekbones, height, weight (the women tended to be smaller and a little too thin), temperament, voice (the man who played Thor sounded quite odd)…there was always something off. 

 While it made Loki feel better about the whole concept of movie, it also made him uneasy.

* * *

_Seen a million situations / She put me in my place / Guaranteed there’s a million more yet to blow up in my face_

_-Ellie Lawson, “Gotta Get Up From Here”_

* * *

“What the…”

Loki sat up straight and slowly turned around. He was not in cat form, but Asgardian. Jessica Witton was standing behind him in the front entry, keys dangling from her hand along with the dark purple leather bag she carried. Her mouth was hanging open while she stared at him with huge green eyes. Once Loki made eye contact, Jess closed her mouth, stood up straighter and allowed the door to close with a soft thud while her bag fell off her shoulder in slow motion. The metal studs on the bottom hit the ground with a thunk, followed by the metal chain-link strap clanging as it folded itself around the bag. Using her keys, she scratched her head as her eyes swept up and down Loki’s body. 

Luckily, he was clothed this time. Each time he transformed since that very first time he’d popped out of his cat form, he’d taken his clothing with him. (He’d taken some of the bigger clothes Jess had in her closet and transformed them into something he could wear as he couldn’t find his own clothing in the mess she called a closet. He was rather mad when he’d been unable to find them, so he’d ruined a few pairs of her shoes, then hid the left shoe of all the remaining pairs around the house. She’d been mad about the chewed up shoes and completely confused about the missing left shoes.)  

“Well, this is rather…shocking. But, the Case of the MIA Left Shoe makes more sense,” Jess said, still scratching her head with her keys. Her eyes swept up and down him again and he hiccuped a laugh. “I don’t remember ordering a Tom Hiddleston looking alarming like Loki.”

The hiccuping laugh sounded again. 

“You did not,” Loki said slowly, feeling a little odd to be actually talking to Jess for the first time. (He’d long gotten over the fact he couldn’t find his clothing, though he’d miss being able to prank her without her knowing it was him. She didn’t seem to think a cat would be able to hide her keys, change the color of her lipstick, make her nail polish turn pink from that horrid green color she wore or cause her tea kettle to randomly make a barking noise instead of the horrible noise it usually made.)

Jess let her body fall sideways and hit the door with a thud and sunk down to the floor till she was a boneless pile of limbs on the ground. 

“You talk. Oh god, do you talk. You even sound like him. Ohmygod.”

“Of course I sound like myself,” Loki offered with a smirk, turning fully in the chair to face her. “Please, do not be alarmed.”

She blinked at him in an over-the-top manner. 

“Alarmed? I come home to a hot guy sitting at my computer clearly researching space, time, and alternate dimensions and you tell me I ought to NOT be alarmed?”

“Of course.” 

She swallowed loudly and pushed herself off the floor. She still did not move into the living area and remained standing near the door. 

“Who are you? And I know you’re the cat, so don’t say that,” she quickly said. “What are you? Please tell me it’s you whose been making all those strange things happen. I don’t think I could handle it just being my imagination as Dell insists. And why are you wearing my clothes?”

“I resized the clothing. They were much too large for you.”

Loki frowned at the shirt and simple trousers he was wearing.

“They’re rejects from my brother I wear when I’m lazy. Or fat,” Jess muttered. “So, who are you?” 

“I am Loki of Asgard,” Loki announced. 

“And you are burned with glorious purpose,” she muttered.

“No. I do not have a glorious purpose,” he informed her, standing. “That never happened.”

“Oh god,” she moaned, walking backwards till she ran into the closet door behind her. With the hand not holding the keys, she knotted her fingers in her hair, looking around wildly. “I knew I shouldn’t have mixed those pills together.”

Loki frowned.

“Who knew Zyrtec, anxiety meds and ibuprofen make Loki of Asgard appear?” Jess said, letting out a rather high pitched noise that might have been a laugh.  

“Excuse me?”

She made the noise again, tugging hard on her hair, which burst out of the messy hairstyle she’d swept it up in that morning when she’d left. Her hair, wild and wavy, fell down around her shoulders. She slowly fell sunk to the ground, ending up balled up in a corner and tugged hard on her loose hair. 

“Who knew? Instead of Excedrin, I took ibuprofen? If I knew this would happen, I’d done it sooner! Or had more panic attacks!” 

“Are you having a panic attack now?”

“NO! I can’t have one! I took the pills like an hour ago when I had one at work!” she screeched. “They happen out of nowhere sometimes. I took a pill when it got too hot and I couldn’t breathe.” 

Loki frowned again, wondering what had caused her to panic whilst at work. It did not matter, so he shook his head. During the time he’d known her, she’d had several of these attacks and they made no sense to him. There was no rhyme or reason to them. 

“I need you to take me to the location you found me as a cat with my clothing,” Loki said. “I have to see if I can get…home.”

Loki wasn’t sure if he had a home or if he wanted to go home. Like Hiddleston’s Loki, he felt as if he did not belong anywhere. And yet, he knew the universe he was currently in was not his own. He needed to get back to where he somewhat belonged. This universe felt wrong, made his skin itch. 

“Home? Home? Home? Home?” she asked, volume and pitch raising with each utterance. She broke down into what Loki thought were laughs, but they might have been sobs. She buried her face in her hands, keys finally falling to the ground next to her. “He wants me to take him to where I found the cat. In with the Loki costume. Oh god, he doesn’t think it’s a costume. Oh god, what the hell? How is this my life?” 

“I am Loki. I know this sounds strange, but you see this in your mindless entertainment all the time,” Loki pointed out, recalling what he’d read on the Internet and seen on the TV. “If it did not happen, would it be in your tales?”

“Yes. It’s call imagination,” Jess mumbled into her hands. She shook her head, hair flying. “I always knew I was nuts, but I never hallucinated before.”

“I am not a hallucination,” Loki snapped, getting annoyed. He crossed the space between them in a few steps and jerked Jess to her feet by her elbows. Having never picked her up, he misjudged how much she weighed and she went flying up and into him, smacking hard into his chest. She sucked in a sharp breath. “See. I’m real. I apologize. I didn’t realize you didn’t weight as much as I thought.”

“Great. He thinks I’m fat,” she mumbled into his chest.

“I did not say that.”

“My cat who only eats tuna thinks I’m fat,” she muttered. She poked him a few times, staring straight at his chest and not lifting her head to actually look at him in the eye. “Seems solid. The things with the laughing gas never felt real. Then again, it was mostly noise. La, la, la, la, la, la. There are too many lawyers in the world, so don’t be a lawyer. Don’t take advice of a dentist who is removing your wisdom teeth on professions.”

“I have no idea what you are speaking of,” Loki told her. “Now, if you’d assist me…”

“Assist you?”

“Yes. I’d like to go to where you found me. I clearly fell through a crack,” Loki said.

A dervish laugh issued from Jess. Loki took a step back and glared at her. She was still blankly looking forward and appeared unhinged. Loki did not want her help, but he’d been unable to find the park she’d found him in, as he’d been a cat and little shell shocked at the time. He needed her to take him there. 

“A crack? You fell through a crack?” she asked, her voice cracking. She began to laugh uncontrollably. “A crack? In time and space? You fell into another dimension?”

“Yes,” Loki replied, pleased she’d caught on so quickly. Then again, going by what she viewed on the TV on a regular basis, that type of thing interested her. She watched a lot of things called science fiction. 

Jess continued to laugh and collapsed on the floor again. “Oh, of course! Makes total sense! Loki of Asgard fell through a crack in time and space and wound up here! On Earth!”

Loki pressed his lips together, glaring at the girl losing it on the ground at his feet. Not sure what to do, he made green fire appear in his hand and knelt down before her.

She instantly stopped laughing, her own eyes appearing more green in the light of the fire in his hand. 

“I am as real as you are,” Loki said in a low, quiet voice. He turned the fire over on his fingers, making it dance. “That movie you made me watch about Thor and his fall to Midgard? That actually happened. Three days before I found myself as a cat in a pile of my clothing and armor. Granted, what we viewed was edited down and adjusted to create a story they wished to tell, but it happen. I did kill my birth father, I am a Frost Giant, and I did attempt to destroy the world I was born upon. I let go to fall into the abyss and woke up as a cat. With you.”

He put the fire out and stared at Jess. She was staring back with wide, green eyes filled with wonder. He had expected fear when he looked at her, but he shouldn’t have expected her to fear him— she knew Loki. She knew the insane, world dominating, cats for brains Loki and did not fear him. The Loki in front of her was nothing like the Loki she knew so well from the films. He was quite rational. 

She took a few shallow breaths and narrowed her eyes a little. She smirked suddenly, cocking her head to the side.

“I made green flames appear out of the toaster trying to make pop tarts. Multiply yourself,” she said, sounding sane for the first time since she’d found him in his Asgardian form. 

Loki turned a little, but not fully, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She slowly got to her feet and repeated her request in a steady voice. 

“You do it in the movies. They do not showcase the extent of your magic. Mostly simply say you have it,” Jess reminded him. “The only magic you do in those movies is make multiples of yourself and become invisible in the shadows.”

“True.”

He heard her swallow thickly. “Do that, and I’ll believe you. Believe when you fell into the abyss you wound up here, on Earth as a cat and not…wherever you ended up per the movies.”

“Quite right,” Loki said, making a duplicate of himself. 

“It was never explained where I’d gone after I fell,” the double replied, appearing rather close to Jess. She let out a small squeak. 

Another double appeared to the left of her, leaning against the wall near the TV. “I found issue with much in that movie. _The Avengers_ it was called.”

“It seemed I was coerced into doing the bidding of The Other and Thanos,” said a double appearing in the kitchen. 

“Yeah,” Jess said, looking between the various illusions with a look of awe on her face. “I’m a total Muggle. I was thinking I was going nuts, but it was just a wizard pulling pranks on me.” 

“Hmmm,” Loki hummed turning around. 

Jess turned to the double next to her, eyes scanning it. She poked it and her finger went through it. 

“Brilliant,” she breathed.

“Of course I’m brilliant,” the double said to her. 

She snorted. 

“Have you calmed down?” Loki asked, waving his hand and making the duplicates vanish. 

Once it was gone, Jess waved her hand through the space it had taken up before turning to him. She nodded, bending over to retrieve her keys.

“So, instead of going mental and loosing yourself in your rage and anger, you ended up here with me as a depressed pranking cat,” she rehashed. 

“It seems so, though, I did not begin pranking you till I was no longer depressed,” Loki drawled. “Will you take me to where I wish to go?”

Jess shifted on her feet. Loki realized she was still dressed for whatever she did on a daily basis. While she was clean when she left, she returned with bits of beige, sparkles, and other random bits of color on her black clothing. Today she had several streaks of various shades of red on her arm, along with what appeared to be blue powder streaks on her trousers. 

“Please, do change out of the outfit you wear daily when you work,” Loki offered, stepping out of the way so she could get to her bedchamber. “I know those…foot coverings annoy you.”

“Heels, they’re called heels. Guys used to wear heels. I read it on the BBC so it must be true. Wish they still did,” Jess grumbled. 

Another random bit of trivia from Jessica Witton. 

Lokie raised an eyebrow as he took in the impractical footwear she wore on a daily basis. “I would never wear those contraptions on my feet.”

“You don’t need the height,” Jess pointed out. “When guys wore heels, we were all still quite short.” 

She kicked the high heeled objects off and they clattered against the wall. After shrinking three inches she walked into the living area, clearly heading for the bedchamber. She paused and turned to face him. 

“How does your magic work here?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, if you are really not in your own…universe, then how does your magic work? We’ve got no magic here,” Jess pointed out. “In _Doctor Who_ , when he fell through a crack into a parallel universe, the TARDIS did not work because it draws energy from the universe. Set it outside it’s own reality, and it does not work right. It couldn’t get…any gas. Does your magic not come from…energy of your own reality?”

“I am not sure what you mean exactly,” Loki began slowly, staring at her. “I do not know this Doctor Who you speak of.”

“You didn’t read about _Doctor Who_? Or watch it? How did you not watch it when I did? You showed up shortly after the season restarted with Clara!”

“Is that the program with the…space ship that looks like a police box?”

“Yeah! I’ve got all the season till the fifth on the computer. I mean, where did you get the whole crack in time thing! That was the thing season five!”

“The Internet,” Loki replied, frowning. “It was sighted several written…essays. I do not remember Doctor Who being mentioned. I did not watch anything other than the movies I am in. I did not you tend to view a lot of science fiction shows, but I found fault with their science.”

“Not you, Tom Hiddleston. Of course it was the only thing you payed attention to,” Jess snorted, going into the bedchamber. “I never thought they developed your character very well in the second movie. I mean, in _The Avengers_. I could understand how you’d end up in the place you were, but…I don’t know. I’ve only seen it once, but I didn’t get it. I mean, I’ve read it in several places, but I never really checked the actual movie, but I think you might have been kind of blue eyed…”

“He was,” Loki agreed, quelling the urge to tell her to hurry up. 

“Yeah,” she said appearing out of the black clothes she wore each day when she went off to work. 

She was now wearing a bright green shirt and trousers that failed to come down passed her mid thigh and those odd orange boot things. He had hid those (right and left in separate locations no where near one another) and yet she had found them easily. 

“Like when he did the mind trip on Hawkeye and the doctor dude their eyes went that cloudy blue color. I think the bad guys did it something similar on Reindeer Games, so he wasn’t totally acting under his own will. From _Thor_ I never got the feeling Loki was…well, a horrible guy. He was misunderstood and craved his father’s attention and affection. He only wound up doing as he did because he was desperate. He want’s crazy off his rocker, he was desperate.”

She paused, standing in the doorway. 

“I was not desperate.”

“I’m talking about Reindeer Games, not you,” she pointed out. “He only wanted to be equal to Thor. He knew Thor wasn’t ready to be king, so he created a distraction. I’m sure Loki knew the Frost Giants would never be able to get what they wanted out of the vault. And a few Frost Giants die, big deal, right? He knew they’d be unable to get in without his aid and he was only aiding them as a distraction. To illustrate to his father that Thor wasn’t ready. As Thor’s reaction after the event showed he was immature and reckless…and while if you—I mean Reindeer Games…well, his words to Thor before the others showed up might be seen as pushing Thor to act recklessly, but Loki isn’t an actor. And the movie doesn’t show he’s a liar. He’s not known for not being untrustworthy, he’s got a silver tongue, yeah, but to be a wordsmith doesn’t exactly mean you’re a liar. It is just you’re good with words and are able to get what you want with them. 

“Also, while it’s made clear Loki is an outsider, he’s not evil or violent. It’s clear Thor values Loki above his other friends. And yeah, maybe the others aren’t huge Loki fans like they are Thor fans, but that’s simply because they are two different people. During that initial confrontation with the Frost Giants, Loki takes on the role of protecting the others as they fight. He uses his skills, those magical skills and knife throwing skills that are so looked down upon, to actually protect the others during battle. He watches out for Thor and his friends. And he worries about Thor, he tries to persuade Thor from doing what finally got him thrown out of Asgard and set forth the plot of the movie.”

Loki stared at her, secretly amazed at her depth of thought on the subject matter. 

“Also, Reindeer Games failed to truly understand what Odin was trying to tell him before he keeled over,” Jess announced, walking forward and picking up the keys from where she dropped them. She turned to Loki, who was still standing in the center of the living room and asked, “Is there a way for you to magic all the money I spent for you when you were a cat back into my bank account? I’m not getting another cat.”

Thrown by the change in topic, Loki asked, “You’re not?”

“No. Because the reason you were so, well, strange was due to the fact you’re not even a cat to begin with,” Jess said, rolling her eyes. “Let’s go. Do you need your clothes? I put them in a protective box under the bed. OH!”

She stared at him, her green eyes filled with realization.

“Yes,” Loki said. “That is why they were made out of strange metals and materials you didn’t know. Because they are technically alien.”

“Dude,” Jess breathed. “You’re a real alien. That looks almost exactly like Tom Hiddleston.”

“Only I have black hair and green eyes.”

“Like Harry Potter in the books,” Jess replied, turning around. 

“Who?” 

* * *

  _My life is different / These grey streets will only get me down / They will never fool me / Integrate me as a clown_  


_-JJ72, “Improv”_

* * *

 


	3. Share The Wonder

* * *

  _Have no questions but I sure have excuse / I lack the reason why I should be so confused_  


_-System of a Down, “Roulette”_

* * *

 Sitting in the mental contraption, known as a car Loki had come to learn, was much better as an Asgardian rather than a cat. Loki slid into the front on the side without the wheel and tuned Jess out as she babbled on about…something. During her speech in the dwelling before they’d gotten in the car, she had said something that never had occurred to Loki. Loki dwelled on it till she stopped prattling. 

“What did you mean I didn’t understand what Odin was trying to tell me before he fell into Odinsleep?” Loki asked, eyes shooting all over to take in the sights of this strange world he’d come to find himself in. This Texas place was quite different from the places the actors resided, or were currently working. There were cars everything, speeding around, and zipping around as if they failed to realized there were other cars on the same pathway. 

“Oh, just that, well, he’d always told both you and Thor that you were both meant to rule, to be king,” Jess said, jerking the car around another one, causing Loki grab onto a handle that seemed to be there for this kind of instance. “You were a prince, or are a prince from your Frost Giant roots as well as through Odin’s claim to you. I believe, while not his actual reason for picking you up, Odin realized that someday he could unite the two kingdoms in peace because he’d picked up a prince. As his adopted son, you were exposed throughout your life to the other Agardians, thus showing them they had nothing to really fear from the Frost Giants.”

“But, he told us those tales. Frost Giants are monsters,” Loki reminded her. 

She sighed. 

“I don’t think Odin wanted to make you believe they were monsters. Granted, he never encouraged Thor to think any other way very strongly, but he did tell you a good king doesn’t try to create war, a wise king doesn’t do that. Or something.”

The car jerked and sped up, sending Loki backwards into the seat.

“Anyways, he made mistakes. I know he didn’t plan for you to find out as you did, not at a time when he was about to fall asleep, not when he’d cast Thor out because he was a baby, and other things. He meant well. I know that doesn’t make up for the fact he didn’t tell you, lied to you and you were kind of on the outside looking in, but— oh bugger.”

The car jerked again and careened off the road they were on to another side road and turned. 

“Sorry. Anyways, Odin did not kidnap you. He found you abandoned in a temple. You were crying, a baby, and he didn’t care you were blue. He picked you up not to kill you but to take you with him. And not as a war relic, just to save your itty bitty life. He didn’t know you’d turn pink,” Jess went on. “Basically, you suffer because he’s a crappy dad. He didn’t know how to handle a kid like you. He could handle Thor because he was familiar. Thor is a warrior. Thor doesn’t think, he is quite simple and fits into the Asgard mold. You, Loki, are complicated and have never fit into any mold. You are a male who isn’t a brawny warrior and you refused to become one. You are strongest in magic, not whacking things over the head. And, so, yeah, Odin seemed to pay more attention to Thor, seemed to favor Thor, but I think he simply had no idea how to show you that he cared, that he loved you. I think he realize a little late all he’d done wrong. It’s not like you jumped up and shouted PAY ATTENTION TO ME! Waved your arms around and threw a massive tantrum like Thor tended to do. You tried in your own way to get his attention, but it failed. Your pranks, your quiet method of asking for attention didn’t make sense to him till you went about trying to get his attention as Thor might have and he said, ‘No, Loki.’”

The car came to a jerking stop. Loki still had a death grip on the handle as he played the two word over in his mind over and over.

_No, Loki._

_No, Loki._

_No, Loki._

Jess turned the car off and silence draped over them.  

_No, Loki._

_No, Loki._

_No, Loki._

“He didn’t mean it as, ‘No, Loki, you have failed me and I hate you.’ He meant it as, ‘No, Loki. You didn’t need to do this. You didn’t need to try to please me in such a way because I’m fine with how you are.’ You realize, he always knew you were a Frost Giant and he still loved you, right? Even after Thor found out, he still insisted you were his brother, wanted to bring you home and likely is off defending you still to the Avengers and trying to convince the world you’re not a lost cause. And you tried to kill him. Several times.”

Loki turned and stared at Jess sharply. “What do you mean, Odin didn’t mean I’d done erroneously?”

Jess shifted in her seat. “Let’s get out of the car. It’ll take ten minute to walk to where Dell and I found you. And it’ll get hot in here quick without the a/c.”

Jess opened the door and got out. Loki undid the belt and followed her out of the car into the muggy evening air. Jess began walking down a path and Loki fell in step next to her. 

“Explain,” he ordered.

“Okay. In the movie, the scene where you and Thor are hanging over the edge of the Rainbow Bridge and Odin catches Thor? Yeah, well, if you look at the man’s face, you can tell he’s sad. He’s realized all your actions— letting the Frost Giants in the first time, sending the Destroyer to Midgard, letting the Frost Giant king in and killing him, and trying to destroy Jotunheim through the Bifrost— he realized at that moment, when you pleaded with him…Odin realized this was your cry for approval…for his approval. You were desperate to please him, to gain his affection, his love.”

Loki felt his heart twist in his chest and glared at the ground.  

“You never had to please him,” Jess insisted. 

Loki continued to darkly glower at the ground. 

“I could be wrong. I’ve seen a things online, read a few stories out there where people make Odin out to be the bad guy— made him out to be how Loki later views the man— evil, ruthless, unfeeling. But, I don’t think that’s how he actually is— not with his facial expressions and what he says to Thor after Loki falls. And what he tried to say to Loki before he fell…asleep.”

Loki allowed the noise of nature to fill his mind and ears. 

“I doubt I explained that well,” Jess admitted after a moment. “Granted, anyone else would tell me I put way too much thought into this, but I am a geek and I do write fan fiction, so, yeah, I put thought into it. And, yeah, I might be wrong. I’ve never read the comics, nor do I know what the next movie will bring with Loki’s character. All I know is he has terrible hair and politely asks when do they begin.”

Loki turned his head towards her.

“You are complaining about my hair?”

“No your hair. Hiddleston’s hair in the trailer. Did you watch the trailer to _Thor 2_? Hiddleston makes a five second appearance at the end. He looks like he could use a brush and a shower.”

Loki did not respond to that right away. He kept silent too long, as Jess went back to the original topic. 

“I just know, after watching _Thor_ the first time, I knew…I could feel it…Loki’s not bad. He’s not evil and he’s not a monster. He’s just messed up. He’s got an inferiority complex as big as Texas, then self esteem and daddy issues on top of it. He also didn’t want the throne. He made a point to tell Thor that during their fight. And I can understand that totally. Loki is not a leader of men, he prefers to follow.”

For some unknown reason, Jess sang the last bit softly under her breath before speaking again. 

“He’s an advisor at heart,” Jess went on. “And if anyone cared to LISTEN to Loki, then Loki would never have made his attempt on Thor’s life.”

“What about telling Thor Father was dead?” Loki quietly asked, clenching his fists together and shoving them into the pockets on his trousers. 

For some unknown reason, Jess chuckled. “Sibling rivalry, Low. By the time Reindeer Games had gone to visit Thor on Midgard, Thor was trying to get his hammer back. Loki likely saw Thor’s failed attempt and knew him to be broken. I doubt he could resist breaking him further— Loki was at this point under a lot of pressure. He had to sit on a throne he didn’t want, no one was taking him seriously, and they all wanted Thor back. Thor could make everything better according to everyone around Loki. So, he played a petty, vindictive prank on Thor, likely thinking Thor would never come back. You must remember, Loki believed Thor to be an immature brute and in no condition to rule.”

Loki did not argue with her. 

“In a sense, then Loki could have it all. He’d have his mother, his father— everyone’s attention. Drunk on that, he told Thor what he did. I mean, on top of all Reindeer Game’s other issues, lording that over Thor…not something he could pass up. It was simply another push into the madness that ate him up by the end of the movie.”

Loki turned away from Jess as she came to a stop. He walked a few paces away from her and kept his back to her. 

His heart continued to twist and a rock dropped in his stomach.

She was right. The mortal— the silly mortal who talked too much, wrote stories about other people’s stories, who put paint on people to make them look better— had a better grasp on why he did things than he had. 

“This is where I found you,” Jess said needlessly. “I think. Kind of all looks the same now that I’m here. But, I think this is right. Right after the bend.”

Shaking off his regret, fury, and other wayward emotions, Loki turned around and looked at Jess, who was staring at the ground with a frown. 

“What would you do?”

Jess looked up. “Do?”

“Yes. In my place. When I get back, what can I do? I tried to commit genocide. I killed a king,” Loki said flatly. “I attempted to kill Thor. And once I successfully did so.” 

Loki wasn’t sure why he was asking her. What could she tell him? From what Loki could tell, she lived an average life, existed, ate, and went to work. She’d never done anything brash, rash or detrimental to another race. She’d never been burdened with a shadow to live within. 

And yet, she understood him better than anyone he’d come across in his lifetime— and he’d lived quite awhile. 

“Repent. Explain yourself with truth,” Jess replied. “Realize and embrace who you are, Loki. You’re not a monster. You’re not biologically an Asgardian, but you are of Asgard and not the Frost Giant World I can’t pronounce. You made bad choices, but…accept them. Own them. Prove to your father through your actions— actions speak louder than words— that you understand you’ve done wrong and are willing to repent. You personally have not done the actions of _The Avengers_ , so you’ve only really killed the Frost Giant King, who was not a very nice man to begin with, and tried to destroy the Frost Giant planet. While not very good things, you did not succeed in destroying the planet and I believe…well, I think your family gets why you did what you did. And I think…I think if you…well, everyone deserves a second chance. People can change.”

Loki eyed her for a moment before brushing passed her and going about his business. 

* * *

  _Tonight there’s no denying / No there’s no denying / There’s something magical in the air_  


_-Ash, “There’s A Star”_

* * *

 The moment he turned his attention to his magic and the area, Loki felt it— the tug, the pulling in his middle towards a point in space that felt warm, cold, hummed and kissed his skin with petals of softness. 

Belonging washed over him and he knew whatever tear, hole, crack, portal he’d fallen through was still there. He only needed to open it and allow the tug to pull him back to his own realm. 

He could feel everything he had not been able to feel these past few months. Right above the ground he’d landed on as a cat in a pile of clothing and armor. 

“Do you ever feel like you don’t belong?” Jess suddenly asked. “Oh, that’s dumb. You’re in this mess because you felt like that. Anyways, while I know I’m not an emotional messed up, angst ridden mess like you, or a Frost Giant, I do almost always feel out of place.” 

Loki lowered his hands, looking at Jess out of the corner of his eye. 

“I always thought…oh, I don’t know. That I was meant to be…” Jess searched around for words. Her hands moved up and down— almost as if she wanted to find the words she was looking for in the air and snatch them for her mouth. “Something. Something big, famous, influential. I felt like I had this higher purpose. I was going to be somebody.”

“Are you not somebody?” Loki inquired, curious and allowing the distraction she was creating. 

“No. I’m a mindless drone in retail job,” Jess replied flatly. “I graduated high school and was tossed into the next step: college. I was scared to go to the usual places— too big, I’d get lost in the crowd. So, I went to a small school in a corn field and got lost there instead. I held onto that belief I was meant to be somebody— in so much I was going to be famous, rich, and successful. I had no idea what I’d do, but I assumed I’d be a writer or something, as I can’t sing and no one has ever applauded my acting skills no matter how much I crave it. When I was at school, I realized I’d never be a published author. Too many people fancy themselves writers. So I gave up. I already knew I had no drive, thanks to Jessica Simpson.”

Loki stared at her blankly.

“I watched this show about Jessica Simpson — she’s a pop singer—  called _Driven_. All about her journey to the top. Hard work, drive— gets you places in this world. While some people are handed things, usually success needs drive, hard work and a lot of other things I just don’t seem to have.”

“What is your point?”

“My point it, after I lost that deep rooted feeling I was meant to be somebody, meant for something big, I realized I just don’t belong. Anywhere. I went to college to find myself and I found absolutely nothing. I paid thirty thousand dollars a semester and wound up graduating without any clue what I wanted to do with my life. I wound up loosing the one thing I had clung to since I was little: I was meant to be somebody important. Things just happen to me, okay? I just flit along and things happen. I don’t know how to do anything. I have no talents, no drive. I want things, yeah, but I have no drive to go get them.”

“So, that makes you feel as if you don’t belong here?”

“No,” Jess said, looking frustrated. She took her hair out of the messy style she had thrown it up into and redid it. “That just makes me realize I’m not really meant to be important in society in the manner I assumed. I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me, I just…god, I suck at talking. What I mean to say is, things happen to me. And I don’t belong here.”

“Here as in Texas?”

“Here. In general,” Jess admitted, waving her arms around. “Like on this planet. I think, when I felt like I was meant to be somebody…I think I started thinking that because I was…I was always a little off. I was always the weird girl, the one that didn’t fit into the norm. Usually, those people, well, they wind up becoming famous somehow. I think I assumed that was what I was meant for till I went to college and found out that over ninety-eight percent of the campus had the same idea as I did that I got lost. I gave up, threw the towel in and allowed myself to…just flit along in the breeze.” 

Loki stared at her, still trying to parse out what she was attempting to tell him. She was frustrated and not saying what she really wanted to tell him. Loki, though, had an inkling what she was trying to say. 

He’d felt the same. He had not really figured out he’d actually belonged till he’d arrived in Texas and everything felt wrong. He turned back to the area with the feeling of home and raised his hands again, allowing his magic to travel out in tendrils. Once again, the feeling of home and belonging washed over him. 

“Stand here,” Loki said, grabbing her upper arm and moving her to the spot he felt the tug. He watched her face shift a bit and her mouth open. She looked around. “Do you feel something there?”

“Yeah. I feel this strange…I don’t know…tugging. Here.” Her fist fell to the center of her chest. “It’s kind of freaky. This is where I found you, right?”

“Yes,” Loki admitted. He frowned, thinking over that day she and Dell had stumbled upon him in cat form. “Why were you here? That day you found me, why were you walking through this park?”

“I…well, uh…”

“Dell Greene-Boniface has two dogs, and yet you were not out walking them when you came upon me,” Loki pointed out. “People of Texas walk their dogs when they go to places like this. You had no dogs.” 

“Yeah, well, we were out,” Jess said, not meeting Loki’s eye. She played with a tight curl that always formed at the tape of her neck. It was a perfect, bouncy ringlet that didn’t match the rest of the loose waves her hair naturally fell in. She always tugged it and wrapped it around her finger when she was thinking— or attempting to lie. 

“Tell me,” Loki encouraged, resisting the need to shake it out of her. 

Jess sighed, dropping the curl. 

“It was abnormally cold suddenly. This cold front swooped in out of nowhere. Dell didn’t have any appointments for the rest of the day and I had the day off, so we had been out doing errands when the cold front swooped in without any storms. The weather pattern didn’t make sense. Usually before of a cold front, you get some thunderstorms and rain. Wind at least. Nothing happened, just a huge drop in temperature suddenly. It was went from almost ninety to almost sixty. Since we were over on this side of town, I suggested we go to the park. I mean, come on…a perfect spring day in the actual springtime? In San Antonio? So, we left the mall and came over here because…I don’t know. Something told me— I’m not sure what, but I knew I’d find something here. And then I found you. I didn’t think much of it because I was simply geeking out because of the costume— I mean your clothing.”

Loki hummed. “So the weather changed. Did it heat back up?”

“Yeah,” Jess said. “By that evening it was back to normal. Dell told me the next day about it when she dropped by work. I didn’t watch the news because I was busy being distracted by you.” 

Loki took another step closer to Jess and asked, “You honestly feel the tug? The change in temperature around this spot?”

Jess nodded. “Should I not? Is there magic here?”

“I’m not sure magic is the proper word, but…I feel home, for lack of a better word for the feeling it insights in me,” Loki admitted.

Jess did not respond. 

Loki stood besides her, looking around. There were not many people walking around the paths, mostly due to the muggy, hot air of early evening. The people who were walking around all had dogs with them and politely ignored Jess and Loki along side the path. Loki cast an invisibility spell and then opened up his magic further to explore the area and see if there was a tear/rip/hole/crack. 

There was nothing of the sort, just energy. 

Loki opened his eyes. 

“So, now what?”

“We go back to your dwelling,” Loki admitted. “I believe…I can figure out how to get back to my own…universe.”

Jess nodded. 

“But, I would request you bring Dell here and see if she feels anything,” Loki suggested.

* * *

  _Heart attack up your sleeve / You can make me believe / That I will grow from the ground_  


  
_-Ingrid Michaelson, “Fire”_   


* * *

 That night, stretched out on the couch, Loki did not bother to think about how to return to his universe, but rather everything Jess had said to him. She had given him much to contemplate. 

* * *

 

_I am afraid of so many thing / But I do not fear the future / What lies ahead is between me and the universe_

_-Winter Hinderland, “Moon Jam”_

* * *

 


	4. It's That Friendly

* * *

_That was Wisconsin / That was yesterday / Now I have nothing that I can keep / Cause every place I go / I take another place with me_

_-Bon Iver, “Wisconsin”_

* * *

 “You met Tim Hiddleston?!”

A pillow thumped Loki in the face, jolting him out of his thoughts. He reacted on instinct and grabbed the wrists of the person looming above him. The person screeched and lost her balance, landing on top of Loki and issued a rather unattractive noise.

It took Loki a moment to realize Jess was on top of him and he was on the couch. Loki’s grip on her wrist let up and she fell sideways off of him, backing up on the ground till she hit the coffee table. 

“I forgot,” she whispered. “Sorry.”

“Forgot what?” Loki asked, sitting up. 

“That you’re Loki,” she admitted. “And highly likely…somewhat…jumpy.”

“I’m not jumpy,” Loki insisted, sitting up and straightening the t-shirt he was wearing. “What did you want?”

Jess rubbed her head and moved around the round table, till she was on the other side of it. 

“Nothing. I just…never mind.”

She pushed herself to her feet suddenly and hurried into the kitchen. Loki listened to her bang around for a moment before he pushed himself to his feet and ambled over to the stools that stood along the counter. Sliding onto one, he studied her for a moment. She was dressed all in black, washing her out and making her look as if she were dead. She whirled around and slammed the tea kettle on the stove and then vanished into the room where she cleaned clothes in loud machines. 

“I apologize for alarming you,” Loki called out. 

He cracked his neck, wondering if he should have slept as a cat. Her couch was not comfortable and his first morning in his Asgardian form found him with kinks in his back and a stiff neck. 

“It’s been awhile since someone has woken me by hitting me in the face,” Loki admitted. 

“I shouldn’t have thrown the pillow at you, but you wouldn’t wake up,” Jess’s voice said from the other tiny room. She came out carrying a basket and set it down in the middle of the kitchen. “Anyways, it wasn’t important. Something you said yesterday finally made it passed my brain block on finding you’re real and…well, yeah.”

Loki studied her as she folded towels and threw them into a drawer. The woman was constantly doing washing, be it towels or clothing, and she did it at times when she seemed to be pressed for time. 

“I can do that for you whilst you’re at work,” Loki offered.

“Did you actually meet Tom Hiddleston, like you spoke to him or did you just stalk him till you figured out he was not you?”

Loki quirked an eyebrow at her. 

“I merely followed the man on his daily business for a few hours till I concluded he was indeed not me in the least,” Loki lied. 

He had followed Tom Hiddleston for a week. The time difference between Texas and London was six hours, so most of the time when Jess was at work, Hiddleston was off doing social engagements. Loki tracked him in the middle of the Texas nights in order to see his morning life. The man ran at an insane hour of the morning. 

Jess nodded, folding and throwing towels at an alarming rate. The tea kettle whistled loudly, a noise Loki had detested as a cat (hence his numerous pranks against it). He wasn’t too thrilled with it now. He waved a hand at it and it began to quack, which finally got Jess’s attention.

“Loki,” she chastised without effort. 

Whisking the tea kettle off the stove, Jess muttered under her breath as she poured the hot water over the tea bag in the thing she used to take her drink with her to work each morning. 

“Don’t destroy my house.”

“Did I as a cat?”

“No. You ate my best shoes then hid the others.”

“Why did you wish to ask about Hiddleston?”

“I don’t know. I kind of had this odd dream about him and you and then I was thinking I’ve never actually met a real celebrity before— well, Sean Biggerstaff stepped on me,” she said, cocking her head to the side for a moment. “My brother met a whole heap of ones during the years he was traveling around on USO tours, but my claim to fame: Sean Biggerstaff stepped on me.”

“Why did he step on you?” Loki inquired, frowning at the thought this seemed to be a minor source of pride for Jess. 

“I was sitting on the ground,” Jess said, snapping the lid on the drink container. “A lot of people were doing it that night at the club or pub or whatever it was I’d gone to with a friend of mine. This guy was on stage when we entered and I thought he looked familiar, but had no idea why. He finished his song and left the stage, stepping on me on accident. He said he was sorry. Later, he came back up on stage and the guy running the open mic night kept calling him Sean and made some comment about how his hair could fetch a pretty penny on eBay. I suddenly realized why he looked familiar.”

Loki blinked, realizing half of what she was telling him, like many things Jess said, made little or no sense.

“Anyways, to confirm my suspicions, I went onto his website the next morning and found out he hung out at the place I’d been the night before and I was like, ‘Sean Biggerstaff stepped on me!’”

“And this was good?”

“He said he was sorry,” Jess said, sounding a bit defensive. “Highlight of my life. Sean Biggerstaff stepped on me while I was studying abroad. Brilliant. I’ll be home around four. There are extra towels under the sink in the bathroom if you wanna shower. I’m not sure what you’ve been doing. Just licking yourself like a cat?”

Loki did not feel like enlightening her, so he said nothing. She did not seem to want an answer as she breezed out of the dwelling without another word. 

* * *

  _I know what it’s like to feel alone / To always  be looking for your home / To stand on a riverbank / Try to make your demons go_  


_-Duke Special, “Something Might Happen”_

* * *

 Loki spent the day researching alternative universes.

By the time Jess walked in the door again, Loki had used almost all the clean paper he could find making notes and trying to work out an equation using Earth math. Math truly was a universal language and after he got down the basics of some of the math used on Earth, Loki was able to translate it into something that made more sense to him. 

He still had nothing, though. 

“Whoa, holy crazy scientist Batman,” Jess muttered, shutting the door. 

Loki heard her purse and keys drop in two different places, but did not move from the pile of papers he was seated in. 

“I require books,” Loki announced.

“For?”

“Physics. Math.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

Loki leveled her a look. 

“Hey, I majored in political science and I put makeup on people for a living,” Jess said, putting her hands up. “Did you eat today?”

“No.”

“Well, get up. We’ll go get some food and drop by a library,” Jess offered.

Loki’s ears perked up.

“I think I still have a library card,” Jess mumbled, searching around in her purse for a moment. “Eureka!”

Loki stood up slowly and smoothed out the clothing he was wearing. He was still wearing the same clothes he’d taken from Jess. He felt it was time for a change. He let his magic flow over him and made himself appear in something that was more dressy. 

“Uh, a little less formal, Lo,” Jess said, eyeing Loki. “I’ll take you to Rudy’s. It’s a gas station and BBQ joint. With sauce! No need for ties and button downs.”

Scowling, Loki made the green tie vanish and changed his trousers into the odd beat up blue coverings he’d seen others wearing. 

“Jeans work. Let me change and we can go,” Jess said, picking her way through the paper on the floor to the bedchamber. Loki stood in the center of his mess and frowned. “What did you get done today?”

“Nothing of value,” Loki grumbled. “I have yet to figure out how to translate my magic into something that can open up the hole I fell through into one that I can travel back to my own universe.” 

“Bummer,” Jess said, appearing in similar pants to the ones he was wearing, those bright orange boot things, and a green t-shirt. She grabbed up her purse and motioned for him to follow after her. “Do you think this universe is set up like yours? Like, I know you travel between realms using hidden passageways that Hemidall can’t see and doesn’t know about. Are those here?”

Loki shook his head. “No. This universe is very different from the one I’m from. There is no magic here, there is no tree of life, and from what I can tell, no intelligent life other than your planet.”

“Seriously?”

Loki debated for a moment on telling the truth or keeping it to himself. Part of him wanted to lie and just tell her they were really the only intelligent life out there period. But, for all he knew, there might be— he just could not feel it.

“On Asgard, when I reach out, I can feel other intelligent beings in the other realms. I can feel the Elves, Frost Giants, Dwarves, Humans, and many others through the passageways. I can feel the life of the universe when I touch the ground. I noticed when I arrived, the ground felt different.”

Jess open the door, grabbing up her keys. Loki stepped through and waited for Jess to lock the door and start for the car before he continued.

“I realize now it was the fact there is no magic, no living tree in the universe.”

“That thing that starts with a Y that I can’t pronounce, right? That’s what you’re talking about, right?”

Loki nodded. “Correct. Yggdrasil.”

“So, this Ig-DRAH-se-il,” Jess said, stumbling over the word, “doesn’t exist here? Thus, you can’t travel between worlds?”

“No. There is also no where for me to go in this reality,” Loki pointed out, opening the door to the yellow car. “The only spot I’ve felt any thing remotely familiar was the spot right above where I appeared.”

Jess nodded absently as she arranged herself in the car, absently handing Loki her purse before she started the car up. 

“So, there might be life out there, you just cannot feel it the way you can back in your universe?”

Loki stared at her, then nodded his agreement. He buckled his belt. 

“So, you’re kind of stuck here,” Jess said, more so to herself than to him. “Do you want to go back? I mean…”

Loki felt a dark expression fall on his features and the car roared to life. Jess glanced at him before she backed out, having clearly decided not to press the issue. She began to babble about her day (so many old ladies today, someone bought me a sweet tea and got so pissed I didn’t want it, I spilled a ninety dollar bottle of foundation today, got in trouble, and on top of all this, I got dosed in this horrible teeny bopper perfume). After fearing for his life on the overly crowded roads where everyone was driving much too fast, Jess parked the car and got out. Loki slowly followed, smoothing his shirt down as he stood to his full height. 

“Texas BBQ,” Jess announced. “I’ve been all over this state, and I’ve found this is the best and not just because I do not have to drive forty-five minutes. Okay, so I’m partial to the sauce. So sue me.”

Jess headed off into the building and Loki followed after her, feeling somewhat bemused. There were quite a few people standing in a winding queue in a small area that smelled strongly of smoking meats. Loki stood behind Jess as she explained the menu to him and he nodded absently. 

“It’s a lot of meat, but I think you’d eat a lot,” she announced, leaning back on the railing. “You ate quite a bit for a cat your size.”

Several people turned around and stared at Jess with looks of bafflement on their faces. 

“I was a large cat,” Loki dryly joked, smirking at the people who were staring. 

“No. You were kinda small,” Jess went on. “But, that’s fine. No boar here. Or game. But, the turkey is good. It’s not wild, though. Don’t eat much wild food these days in the good old U.S of A.”

Loki nodded absently. “I was never found of heavy meats and foods.”

“Brilliant! Let’s get a pound of turkey! What sides do ya want?” 

“Excuse me, but what part of England are you from, young man?” a woman standing in front of them asked, placing her hand on his arm. Loki froze in his attempt to jerk out of her hold. “You’re accent is so soft.”

Her accent was quite heavy for the area. While Loki had realized he had a British sounding accent, it was so bland it had no location. Jess’s accent was similar in that it was so bland she didn’t sound like she was from Texas at all except when she would randomly say “y’all.” This woman sounded like some of those people they showed on those back water TV shows Jess couldn’t stand but fascinated Loki. 

“London,” he answered.

“Oh,” she breathed. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“It’s lovely,” Loki said. Granted, he’d only seen what parts of London Hiddleston frequented. Loki doubted Hiddleston hit up all the tourist joints during his daily life. 

“I like Glasgow,” Jess announced somewhat loudly. “But, London’s cool.”

“Where are you from?” the woman asked.

Jess badly suppressed a smirk as she said, “San Antonio.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” Jess said. “Hometown girl.”

“How’d you two meet then? Study abroad? College? Internet?”

The woman gave them a rather large smile— clearly invested in a across pond romance. 

“I fell out of the sky,” Loki sardonically jested. 

Jess snorted. The woman looked as if she was beginning to regret engaging them in conversation. 

“I found him in a park,” Jess said. “He was lost. Englishman lost in Brackenridge Park. Go figure?”

“I have a terrible sense of direction.”

“Hence why you need me,” Jess said brightly and they moved forward in line. 

The older woman smiled and made a few more random comments to Jess, which Jess responded. Loki remained silent.

“So, what sides?” Jess asked once the woman moved on. “I usually go for the peach cobbler.”

“What is that?”

“Sugar. Peaches. Sugar.”

“Why not call it sugared peaches?”

“Because there’s some butter and flour,” Jess added. 

“What else do you get?”

“Well, I don’t often come alone, so usually, Dell gets potato salad, which I don’t eat.”

“Try the creamed corn!” the tall man behind the counter shouted at Jess as soon as he heard her. “It gooooood.”

He waved a spoon in her face, which she took. She stuck it in her mouth and shrugged. 

“Here ya go, boy,” the man said, holding out another spoon for Loki. 

Loki detested being referred to as “boy” but refrained from saying anything. He was beginning to find if he spoke, people continued to engage him in conversation. People here talked much too much. 

Loki ate the creamed corn and glanced down at Jess.

“Was it any good to you?”

“It was fine.”

“We’ll take some of that and the peach cobbler,” Jess said to the man.

They exchanged further pleasantries and they moved on to another person, who took the order for the meat. 

“Here or to go?” the woman asked, hitting buttons on some sort of primitive computer. 

“Here,” Jess said, pulling out the plastic card again.

The other woman took it, ran it through something, printed out some paper, handed Jess a pen and Jess signed it. She was handed her bag and Jess led the way to some primitive looking tables covered in plastic. They sat down at one of the table and Jess got the food out. She handed him a portion. 

“Here, put some of this on the meat,” Jess ordered, handing him a rather large bottle of something red. 

He dumped it onto what she dished out to him. 

“Is that enough?”

Jess laughed. “Yeah. So, you’ll go to the library and I’ll go buy you some clothes.”

“Excuse me?”

“What? Are you a fashionista? Or can I figure out what you can wear? I already know what size you wear. You’re the same size as my brother was,” Jess said. “Only taller. He was only five foot ten. Short for a guy. Or average. He liked to think he was average.”

“You said was,” Loki softly said, then regretted it. He did not wish to discuss family at the moment. 

“Yeah. He was a test pilot. Much older than me,” Jess explained. “He died a few years ago in a plane crash. You know what a plane is, right?”

“A mode of transportation that flies in the air,” Loki replied. Jess nodded. “So, he is dead?”

“Yes,” Jess said, casting her eyes down at the table and busying herself with her food. She gave an uncomfortable laugh and said, “We mortals do die rather easily.”

“What does a test pilot do?”

“Tests out planes. Like new ones they’re developing. He was a test pilot for the military, so he tested out experimental fighter jets. He loved his job and he died doing what he loved,” she said, sounding somewhat sad. 

Loki shifted uneasily. “Ah. He was a warrior who flew?”

Jess snorted. “Sure. He was in the military, so I guess in a sense he was a warrior. He never saw battle, like hand to hand or anything. Unlike my dad.”

“He was also a warrior in the military?”

Jess nodded. “He was in the Army, though. Not the Air Force. He was killed in action during the first Gulf War when I was little.” 

Loki stared at the woman across from him. “When you spoke of your…granny? You used passed tense.”

“She passed away a few years ago,” Jess went on, stabbing her turkey with her fork. “Alzheimer’s. She had no clue who anyone was by the time she passed on.” 

Loki frowned. “Do you have any living family?”

“Pappy. Though, he also has no idea who I am.”

“Does he have…Alzheimer’s as well?”

“No. At least the doctors don’t think he does. He had surgery on his hip shortly after Granny passed on and woke up not having any idea who I was. He had managed to forget the past thirty years of his life. It was heart breaking tell him Granny, Dad and Johnny were all dead.”

Jess was quiet as she looked up under her lashes at Loki, who wanted to ask one final question. 

“Ask.”

“Where is your mother?”

“No clue.”

Loki felt confused.

“She took off after I was born,” Jess explained. “No one has heard from her since. While Dad was alive, Granny and Pappy looked after us while he was deployed. After he died, we moved here.”

“So, you were not born in Texas?”

Jess shook her head. “No. North Carolina.”

Loki had no idea where that was.

“I guess now you know as much about my tragic family story as I do about yours,” she said, giving him a sad smile. “I was wondering when this conversation was going to come up. Who knew it’d be at Rudy’s?”

She laughed, an odd sounding laugh that was somewhat ironic and bitter. 

“Anyhoo, library for you, Lo, and I’ll hit the mall and get you some clothing. I know you can…” she waved her hand up and down, “but, it just seems dumb for you to keep wearing the clothes I tend to wear when I feel fat.”

Loki shook his head. “Fine. I would like to hear more about your thoughts on the movie _Thor_.”

“Huh?”

“Yesterday, you told me insightful things. I wish to hear them again,” Loki requested. 

Jess bit her bottom lip and then began to explain again her theories on Odin, Thor and everything that had happened in the movie. 

* * *

  _I let it fall, my heart / And as it fell you rose to claim it / It was dark and I was over_  


_-Adele, “Set Fire to the Rain”_

* * *

 Later, after they were back at the dwelling, Loki asked her why she felt like she did not belong. 

“I’ve never felt like I belonged,” Jess reminded him. “I wasn’t sure if you were listening to my babble yesterday. Clearly you were.”

Loki nodded. “Of course. I’ve never felt like I fit in either, as you clearly have realized.”

Jess nodded. “Yeah. You’re different. I’m not honestly all that different from the average person. I mean, I don’t go against the grain. I’m kind of strange, I guess, but for the most part I am quite average. The feeling I don’t fit in is just a perceived notion I have.”

Jess stared at him with wide green eyes before she burst out laughing. Loki frowned.

“I sound like some philosophy student!” she chortled, holding her middle. “Not that I did any deep thinking when I took Philosophy 101. I spent most of the course thinking it was so stupid and I wished the professor still took cookies as bribes for As.”

Loki sighed and sat down on the couch. The pile of books they had checked out from the library sat in front of him. He wasn’t sure if the books would help, but he was going to try. He knew there was not much for him in his own universe, but there was even less for him here. He had no identity, there was no one else out there like him that he could easily find, and while he knew he’d be in quite a bit of trouble he wanted to be able to return home at some point. In a world filled with mortals, he would grow weary of finding new people to form connections with after Jess grew old and died on him. 

He had to get back to his own reality. 

“Hey, Lo, just a through, is there some way for you to use the Tesseract? Like the one SHEILD is testing? I mean, assuming the events of Thor actually occured, it’s safe to assume there’s a Tesseract on Midgard, right? That’s how Reindeer Games reached Midgard in the movie, right?”

“What are you suggesting?” Loki asked, looking up from between his fingers. 

Jess ran her hand through her hair and then sighed. “I don’t know. Barton said it was like a door. Reindeer Games made a connection on the other side and opened the door. How?”

“I assume with magic,” Loki said. “Or something else powerful to connect to it. The staff he carried had a similar light to it. The Chitauri might have had an artifact that could connect or open a portal.”

“Then why did they need Loki to open one?”

“Maybe they couldn’t send more than one person,” Loki suggested. “They needed him to open a larger one for the army. Or, maybe he did use his magic— something the Chitauri didn’t possess—  to connect with the Tesseract? I’m not sure, as the movie did not cover how Loki managed to arrive on Midgard.”

Jess nodded, looking away. She then shook her head, rolling her eyes. “Who woulda thunk I’d be discussing an action hero movie as a fact?” 

“I never thought my life was fake,” Loki dryly commented.

“I don’t exist in your world, you realize that,” Jess said, turning to him. “I mean, Tom Hiddleston doesn’t exist in yours, does he?”

“I do not know,” Loki said. “I never really had much need to know. But seeing since no one recognized Thor when he was on Midgard, I doubt there’s a Christopher Hemsworth.”

“Oh! Yeah. Wierd. I guess all the actors in those movies wouldn’t exist in your universe,” Jess commented. “Does Tom Hiddleston really look exactly like you?”

“No. He is blonde, has curly hair and very blue eyes,” Loki admitted. “His facial structure is a bit softer and his hair line is quite different. He sounds different naturally and has wrinkles and lines on his face I will never have. He also smiles. A lot.”

“Hmmm.”

“It is similar with Helmsworth. He is not as wide as Thor, his eyes aren’t as blue, nor is his hair as golden. However, when both actors are in makeup and in character, they look exactly like us, do you not think?”

“True. Hiddles looks exactly like you,” Jess said. 

Loki hummed his agreement, carding his fingers through his too long hair. It was almost brushing his shoulders. He’d ask Jess later where he could get it trimmed in town. He knew she got her hair…attacked somewhere around here. Each time she went to this place, she came back looking more outlandish than she had when she’d left. Right now her hair was dark brown with almost white streaks through the under layers. When he first met her, the while entire bottom layer of her hair was bright pink while the top was blonde. 

Bizarre. 

“Okay, so, what do you think about my idea? About using your magic to force open the door. The connection is still there, right?”

Loki sat back and stared at Jess. Really stared at her, allowing his amazement to creep in further as he met her gaze. Her eyes were the exact same shade of green as his eyes. That was strange for several reasons, one being it wasn’t a real natural eye color for a mortal. But, Jess had the same shade of green as Loki did. Dell had commented on this fact when they’d found him as a cat all those months ago. Jess lacked any family photographs, so he was unable to determined where her green eyes had come from. 

“Well?”

Loki shook his head. He cast his eyes around on the papers littering the dwelling’s floor and put thought into what she was suggesting. 

“I would need to create a device to channel my magic through,” Loki realized as he thought about it. “Hiddleston’s Loki likely channeled his magic through the specter. I would need a power source of some sort in order to push the magic. And…”

His mind took off and he stopped talking as he went over the multitude of things he would need to complete in order to use his magic to “open” a door in another universe. It would take more than his magic, but his magic could double or triple the power of an Earth power source. 

“Oh, you clever people…always going off into your mind palaces,” Jess grumbled. 

The next time Loki looked up, Jess had gone into the bedchamber and it was dark in the dwelling. Loki stretched out on the couch and went back to thinking. 

* * *

 

_I don’t know where / Confused about how as well / Just know these things will never change for us at all_

_-Snow Patrol, “Chasing Cars”_

* * *

 


	5. The Last Frontier

 

* * *

  _I will always be me that I know / But oh, even though I’m happy being me / I want to get away from all this harsh reality_  


  
_-Lenka, “Anything I’m Not”_   


* * *

 “What do you look like?”

Loki slowly looked up from the laptop he’d recently procured in order to run endless simulations on how Earth energy and his magic might react against what he knew about the Tesseract. 

“Do you not have working eyes?” Loki inquired, quirking an eyebrow. 

Jess sighed, rolled her eyes and flopped onto her stomach. Jess had announced the couch was getting too much use from their rears and almost forcefully threw him into the bedchamber two weeks ago. He had a feeling she more than likely wanted to lay out flat. She was unable to do that if Loki was seated at his end of the couch. Since that point, Loki spent most of his time in the bedchamber rather than the TV room, as it was quieter. Usually. 

“Loooooowwwwkeeeeeeeeeeeey,” Jess whined. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“No, I do not understand. This is what I look like.”

He made a gesture to himself.

Jess buried her face in the pillow and screamed. Loki looked at her quizzically before going back to the laptop and entering in more numbers. He forgot about Jess still she loudly asked, “Where the hell did you get that program? NASA?”

“No. MIT,” Loki joked with a smirk. Where he’d obtained it, Jess likely had never heard of and they knew she knew, her days were numbered.

Loki could admit he did not wish for her days to be any more numbered than they already were. 

“You know, I don’t want to know,” Jess grumbled.

Loki continued to punch numbers and get no results for another half hour before he sighed and leaned back into the pillow on his side of the bed. 

His side of the bed. 

He’d never had a side of a bed before. Before, it had just been him in the bed. Alone.

Was this _his_ side of the bed? He always sat on this side, as she seemed to only use one side of the bed. Even if she was not with him when he came into the chamber, he sat on this side. Even when we was forced back into his cat form when Dell and Benoit/edict came over, he curled up on this side of the bed. 

“The blue skin,” Jess announced. 

Loki jumped at the sound of her voice. He attempted to compose himself before looking down at her. 

“Go blue,” she ordered like she was cheering for a football team. (Jess was an avid football fan and spent her weekends watching this sporting event now that it was “football” season.) “I’d like to see it in person. Please?”

Loki stared at her, wondering when it had become okay for her to speak to him in such a manner. He was a prince. One did not order a prince to do anything unless you were the king.

But, was he really a prince?

No. Well, yes. Technically, he was always a prince. He was just no longer the prince he thought he’d been. 

Did that matter?

No.

Did he have a problem with how Jess had spoken to him? 

No.

He had a problem with her request, but not how she phrased it. 

Huh.

“No.”

“Awww, Lo, come on,” Jess pleaded, pushing herself up onto her elbows. She was buried under her blankets while Loki was on top, but she still kicked him. It was not painful, mostly due to the fact she lacked shoes and had about six inches of padding between her foot and his leg. “I like the blue skin.”

“I thought you did not know what it looked like,” Loki stiffly replied.

Jess sighed, flopping back down. “It’s hard to see in the movies when Hiddles goes blue, but I think it’s gorgeous.”

“How do you know if you find it hard to see?”

“Well, he’s all adorable,” Jess pointed out, giving him a look. “The blue just adds an element. I could do without the red eyes, but it’s part of the package. He doesn’t look like the other Frost Giants either as they’re not pretty. In _Thor_ when he goes blue, he’s kinda pretty. I wonder if he’ll be blue in _Thor 2?_ ”

“You do realize Hiddleston is made to look just as I do in real life, so I would look the same as he does when he is…blue,” Loki pointed out, shutting the laptop and turning to leave.

“Arg. I’m curious, okay? And I know you’re all uptight about your blue skin,” Jess said, sitting up. “Don’t you run away from me. Get back here.”

Loki paused at the end of the bed and looked back at her. 

“You want to see the monster?”

“Lo, we’ve been over this. You’re not a monster,” Jess tiredly said. 

She tossed the blankets back and got out of the bed. She pulled down the tank top she was wearing over her stomach (for some reason all the shirts she wore ended up around her waist and she was forever yanking her shirts down) and padded over till she was standing in front of him. She folded her arms, wrapping them around her waist. 

“You’re Loki. You’ve got pink skin and you’ve got blue skin. I’ve been dying to see the blue skin and I guess since you’ve been here for awhile and in humanoid form, I felt I could ask. So, please, might I see your Jotun form?”

Loki frowned at her.

“I’m not racist, dude.”

“Racist?”

“Yeah. Do you not know that word?” Jess asked, frowning up at him. 

“I’m not familiar with the concept,” Loki stiffly admitted, tighting his grip on the laptop in his hand. 

“Oi with the poodles already,” Jess muttered. “Okay, you Asgardians are racist against Frost Giants. Frost Giants are a race of people and y’all see them under a blanket of hate. You…hate them simply for being Frost Giants and refuse to give them a chance, see them for anything other than their race. If you get me a dictionary, I could give you a better definition. It’s one of those words I kinda grew up around and just kind of understand the meaning. Being racist is a bad thing.”

“So, to say all Frost Giants are monsters, savages, and should be killed is racist?”

Jess jade green eyes darted back and forth between his before she nodded. “Yeah.”

“I see,” Loki said. “So, I was raised to be racist against myself.”

“Er…yes.”

Loki frowned. 

“You don’t have to be racist,” Jess remarked. “You know you’re not a monster, savage or any of the other things you were raised to believe.”

“I am a monster.”

“Loki, we’ve been over this. You’re not a monster,” Jess sighed. “I thought you were done with the self hatred?”

“Clearly not.”

Jess blinked. “Are you pulling my leg.”

“Not at the moment. You are using both your legs.”

Jess groaned, tossing her hands in the air. 

* * *

  _The mirror shows not / Your values are all shot / But oh my heart was flawed /  I knew my weakness / So hold my hand / Consign me not to darkness._  


_-Mumford & Sons, “Broken Crown” _

* * *

 “Why do you want to see?”

It was four days later. Jess was curled up in the corner of the couch under a pile of sheets watching one of the _Iron Man_ movies. She peaked out at him from her cocoon. She had informed him Russia had taken up residence in her nose and to leave her alone. She proceeded to burry herself in sheets. 

“I told you. Curious,” Jess said, pulling the sheet off the top of her head. Her hair was wild and stuck out all over. She had recently had it died various shades of red and orange. It kind of looked like her hair was on fire. 

Loki pressed his lips together. 

“I don’t want to sit around and laugh or anything. I just wanna better look,” she reiterated. 

“Why?”

Jess sighed, giving him a look. He wanted to call it pity, but he was sure she was simply fed up with him. Or was in pain— Russia living in her nose and all. 

“Loki, you need to accept this aspect of yourself. From your reaction the other night, you’ve not accepted it,” Jess said, nose twitching. She sneezed ten times in secession. “Blarg. What was I saying?”

“I have to accept myself.”

“You do, Lo,” she said, sniffing. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You despise that part of yourself. While you’re not a depressed lump as you were when you first got here, you are…I know you’ve gotten nowhere on that laptop you stole from the Apple store.”

“Borrowed. I’ll return it.”

“Uh huh,” Jess said, dropping her hand from her nose. She sniffed again. “I like the fact you’re a Frost Giant.”

Loki rose an eyebrow, looking at her doubtfully. 

“I think it’s cool. You’ve got two looks!” Jess cried. 

She sniffed again. Her eyebrows knitted together for a moment till she pushed herself into an upright position. Swinging her legs, she sat with her legs crossed in front of her and tucked under her thighs. Jess gathered her pile of sheets around her, pulling them tightly. 

“You are magical, you shape shift, and you’ve got blue skin. I happen to find it quite cool.”

“Literally,” Loki grumbled. 

Jess swallowed loudly. “Yeah, okay. I walked into that one.”

She sniffed, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. Loki wrinkled his nose in distaste. 

“I will never hate you for being a Frost Giant. I will never hate you for being pink. I will never hate you for doing magic. I will never hate you for your past transgressions. I like who you are. I like you. You’re my friend and I know…I know you need someone to accept you for you who are.”

Friend?

“I don’t…I don’t have friends,” Loki stated flatly, narrowing his eyes.

Jess snorted. “Uh huh.”

“I…don’t,” Loki reiterated. “Thor has friends. I have— had Thor.”

“Okay. Well, what am I? Chopped liver?”

Loki pursed his lips together, raising his chin a little as he regarded her. 

“And you accept me for who I am, then? Because you’re my…friend?”

Loki doubted she really, truly did. He knew she knew an awful lot about him and had spent a great deal of time contemplating his character before he even showed up in her life, but he doubted she really could simply accept him. 

No one accepted him for who he was.

That was why he had no friends. 

“You’re like Harry Potter with the added bonus of ice magic,” she proclaimed happily. 

“What?”

“NO! You’re LUPIN!” she shouted, pulling the sheets back up on over her head like a hood. She pulled them tight and looked at him in a manic way. “Lupin! Hidden power of werewolf!”

“He despised himself for being a werewolf,” Loki pointed out.

“I know. He thought it made him a monster,” Jess agreed with alacrity. 

“He was a monster in wolf form without that potion,” Loki reminded her.

“Yes, yes, so it’s not a perfect example, but being a werewolf wasn’t his only thing,” Jess said, rocking back and forth.

Loki had a feeling whatever medicine she had taken to help with her illness had kicked in as she was smiling strangely, behaving oddly and her eyes were glassier than they’d been earlier. 

Maybe now was a good time to show her? Last time she’d been like this, she didn’t remember much of what she’d done once the medicine had taken hold. 

“Lupin was awesome. He just had a furry little problem,” Jess explained. “You’ve just got a frozen little blue problem. And it’s not even as bad as Lupin’s issue because you don’t turn into a werewolf. You simply turn blue and remain who you are.” She darted a hand out and poked him in the chest to accent each word. “Who. You. Are.”

He glowered at her for a moment. He eyed her finger (painted an alarming shade of orange), then her face and then her finger again. She retreated back into her sheets. 

“I know it’s hard, Lo. But…please?”

She looked at him with her big eyes and blinked. He was sure she was attempting to bat her lashes at him as females tended to do at him for unknown reasons, but she mostly looked foolish. 

“You do realize you are on a lot of…medicine at the moment for your Russian problem and you might not remember me showing you, correct?”

“Russian problem,” Jess snorted. “My sinus problems are now Russian!”

This seemed to amuse Jess greatly. She giggled and fell over. 

“I love…whatever I took!” she chortled. 

Loki sighed. “Maybe another day. When you’re not crazy.”

“I am not loco. I’m perfectly sane,” Jess said, sniffing again and sitting back up. “Please. I’m sick. Take pity and show me your pretty blue skin.”

She pouted at him now, something she did have a talent for. Jessica Witton had the whole kicked puppy look down. 

Loki was able to resist many things, but for unknown reason that kicked puppy dog look got him each time she brought it out. 

Luckily, it was not often. 

Loki sighed and closed his eyes. He felt for the cold, frozen spot within himself and allowed it to overtake. He felt his skin turn cold, hissing as the humid, hot air touch it. Jess issued an awed sounding noise. 

“Loki…” she trailed off. 

“What?”

“You’re pretty.”

“I am not pretty,” Loki snapped, opening up his eyes. “Little girls are pretty. Flowers are pretty. I am not pretty.”

Jess gazed up at him. As he looked into her glassy, green eyes, he half expected to see some disgust, or something that hinted at the fact she was not okay with the blue skin, raised marks, or his red eyes. Instead he simply saw…her. She was looking at him as she usually did, only she looked a little too excited. 

That was likely due to the various medicines she’d taken. 

“Gorgeous. Exotic. Beautiful. Pulchritude. Bonito. Bonny. Fair. Comely.”

“I get it.”

“Beauteous. Appealing. Fetching. Stunning. Beguiling. Bewitching.”

“I have gotten the picture.” 

“Toothsome. Pas mal de tout. Belle. Cute!”

“You’re done.”

Jess giggled, falling sideways again. “Bijou! Sweet. Attractive. Dishy! Natty. Fanciable. Glamourous.”

Loki pressed his fingers to his eyes for a moment. 

“Exquisite, devine, foxy, winsome. Dapper!”

Loki sighed deeply.

“Azure. Cobalt. Midnight. Perse. Lapis. Sapphire.”

“Now you’re just listing shades of blue, Jessica,” Loki sighed, lowering his hands. 

“You are blue. Are you cold?”

“I think the name Frost Giant implies cold will be involved.”

“Can I feel? I mean, I won’t touch you, as I might get frost bitten, but can I feel like above?”

Loki eyed her warily. “Do not touch my skin. It will likely burn you, as you rightly assumed.”

Loki knelt down next to the couch as Jess pulled herself into a seated position. He extended his arm, keeping it bent at the elbow and holding it out in front of his chest. Even thought it was getting colder now, he was still wearing a t-shirt. Jess’s definition of cold and his varied vastly. 

Jess allowed her hand to slither out of the sheets she was wrapped in. As her hand came out, the sheet fell open a little. She grabbed it up before it fell off her with her other hand, all the while hovering her hand a good six inches above Loki’s arm.

“Feel anything?” he inquired.

“No. Gotta go closer,” she said, quite serious. 

Loki watched her as she ran her tests, slowly lowering her hand till it was hovering just above his skin— almost touching.

“That is close enough,” Loki said, almost snatching his arm away. Jess reached out with her hand not hovering above his blue arm and grabbed his shoulder so he couldn’t move. The sheets pooled around her. 

“This is so awesome,” she breathed, her green eye wide with wonder. “You are radiating cold instead of heat. It’s kind of like my feet in the winter.”

“Your feet?”

“I’ve got ice blocks for feet. When I go to bed, I can feel them radiate cold against my legs,” she whispered as if it were a big secret. “Can I have the pink skin now?”

“Why? Tired of this?”

“No. Wanna test what it feels like against the blue,” she explained in a hushed tone. 

Due to the state she was in, Loki indulged her. He let the pale skin overtake his body. 

“Whoa,” she said in her normal volume. “Utterly cool. This feels so..bizarre now. You’re like…cool. Or my hand is cold.”

She slapped her hand on her face.

“Nope. Hand hot,” she proclaimed, sticking it back out till it was hovering above his arm again. “You’re not hot. You’re like…lukewarm.”

She clamped her hand down on his bare arm suddenly. Her hand felt like a hot iron on his cool skin.

“Are you sure you do not have a fever?” he asked, frowning a little as he searched her face. She was not sweating, nor did she look feverish. 

“No, dude,” she breathed. “No fever. Just allergies. Tis allergy season once again, with fall quickly approaching.” 

Loki still reached out with his free hand and felt her forehead. 

“Normal, right?”

“No, you feel hot to me.”

“Hmmmm” Jess hummed. She took her hand off his arm and burrowed back into her sheet hut. 

“I’m dopey,” she giggled.

“Yes, yes you are,” he agreed.

“I don’t have a fever. I’m cold.” She giggled and started to sing. “It’s gettin’ cold in her, let’s put on lots of clothes…”

She dissolved into giggles. Loki shook his head and stood up. 

“Do you know what?” Jess suddenly asked. 

Loki stared at her as she gazed back at him with glassy eyes.

“I know quite a bit.”

“I like you and you should build an arc reactor,” Jess proclaimed.

“Oh?” Loki asked, raising his eyebrows. 

Jess nodded and pointed at the screen. “If Tony Stark can do it, I bet you can do it.”

“Tony Stark is…fictional.”

“So were you till you fell out of the sky.”  

* * *

  _I was just guessing at numbers and figures / Pulling the puzzles / Questions of science, science and progress / Don’t speak as loud as my heart_  


_-Coldplay, “The Scientist”_

* * *

 It took six weeks. Six weeks spent working endlessly. Six weeks and all he had to show was a tiny, silver device that looked like a child’s toy. 

“I still can’t believe that’s it,” Jess said, eyeing the object in the palm of his hand. “That thing’s supposed to be more powerful than an arc reactor?”

Loki looked over at Jess, who was seated in the chair next to the couch hugging a Union Jack pillow to her chest. The look on her face was one of confusion and bewilderment. The past six weeks, she’d helped him when she could, but she wasn’t versed in science. As she put it, her mind didn’t work that way. While Loki might have brushed her off as an idiot once, he knew better. While she couldn’t do math or really understand the object that would allow them to travel back to his original universe, it was her idea.

One she gave him when she had a fever (she actually had a cold, not simply allergies) and was doped up on medicine and pain killers. 

“It is an arc reactor,” Loki reminded her. “We needed a power source with enough power— so I invented one.” 

“Well, invented as you made a working model of a fictional idea.”

“Details,” Loki scoffed. 

They were silent for a few minutes. Jess continued to stare at the device in his hand with awe.

“It took out the entire Texas power grid,” Jess reminded him. 

“I did not realize that would happen.”

“I cannot believe you built that from the plans they used as props for the movie,” Jess breathed, leaning forward a bit. “Is it on? It’s glowing.”

“It’s holding a little of my magic to show you that it works. I must feed more of my magic into it and allow it to connect to the Tesseract in my original universe for it to truly be operational,” Loki reminded her. 

Jess nodded. 

“Are you ready?”

“Huh?” Jess asked, sitting back suddenly. She looked at him with wide eyes, confusion in those green depths. “Ready for what? Are you leaving now?”

Her whole face fell.

“We’re leaving.”

“We?”

She pointed between herself and Loki several times. Loki nodded. 

“Seriously? We? What? Why? I can’t…what about…what?”

Loki sighed, setting the…tiny arc reactor (he had yet to think of a better name for the object) down on the coffee table. 

“Why would I not take you?”

“I live here!”

“You do not belong here,” Loki reminded her. “You told me when we first went to the site as humanoids. You felt the same tug, the same pull as I did when you stood in that spot. You belong in the other universe.” 

Jess frowned. “But, I don’t know anyone! I won’t have any identification! What about…”

“Your grandfather is cared for,” Loki reminded her. “Due to how he set his financials up, he will be cared for till the end of his days. He doesn’t remember you and when you see him he tends to get angry.”

Jess frowned, looking away. Loki had gone with her once when she had gone to visit the old man. He did in fact get hostile towards her, which clearly broke her heart. 

“I believe if you inform Dell and Benoit you plan to go abroad and find yourself, they will understand.”

“I won’t be able to contact them, though. Loki…I don’t know,” Jess said, suddenly standing up and going into the kitchen. 

Loki knew she was making tea. He had learned this action of making tea in time of distress was a very British thing to do. The fact Jess did it was further proof to him she was different from those she’d grown up around. While he could accept that some Americans might do this action because they fancied themselves anglophiles, Jess did it without thinking— as if it was perfectly natural for her to constantly make and drink cups of tea in times of crisis. 

He had pointed it out one day to her and she had stared at him blankly before saying, “You know, Dell says the same thing. She said in another life, I must have been totally British.”

“We drink tea instead of coffee on Asgard. Mo—Fig— Mother used to make tea in times of upheaval. When I was upset, she’d bring me a cup of tea.”

“I hate coffee,” Jess proclaimed. “Dell says it makes me un-American. Benedict says I’m not French, which I could have told him. Also, he says American coffee sucks. But so does American tea. Hence why I pay an arm and leg for the British stuff. I’m a brat.”

Loki didn’t think it made her a brat, as it sounded like something he’d do.  

The green eyes were something else that made Loki believe she did not belong in this world and she was in some way connected to him. While she failed to leave photos of her family out, she did in fact have them. Members of her family all had lighter hair and blue eyes— like Loki’s adoptive family. However, unlike Loki, she resembled her family members in her facial and body structure. She was clearly related to them— just dark hair with green eyes. (Her natural hair color was quite dark, going by the pictures of her before she discovered hair dye.)

Loki knew there was a reason for these green eyes. He’d yet to discover it, but knew in time he’d figure it out.

The fact she had found him out of all the inhabitants of the planet also told him she was important. She felt the same tug, the same pull of the other reality. She felt out of place, singled out here. She felt adrift— just like Loki. 

“How do you expect me to just dump my life here?” Jess asked, slamming her mug down on the countertop. “This is my life. This is it.”

Loki glanced around the tiny apartment and looked back at Jess. 

“This is your life. Is this all it is?”

Jess ground her teeth together. 

“You said it yourself you do not belong here. Did it occur to you the reason you found me, the reason you can feel the other universe as I do is the fact you belong there and not here?”

“Loki, I’m mortal.”

“I know.”

“I am going to die.”

“I know.”

“You’re not.”

“I will someday,” Loki reminded her. “I’m semi-immortal. Not forever immortal.” 

Jess gave off a frustrated sigh and raked her fingers through her wavy hair. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m going to grow old and die. And I’ll do it in a world by myself.”

“You will meet new people,” Loki reminded her. “If our theories are correct, the Tesseract is currently in a SHEILD base. I am sure once you prove you are not a danger to the Earth, they will be able to set you up with an identity.”

Jess scratched her forehead and snorted. “Sure. What will likely happen is they’ll lock me away and run tests on me till I die.”

“I won’t let that happen, Jessica.” 

Jess glanced at him from under her lashes before looking at the countertop again. She let her hand fall from her head and traced random patterns for a moment on the smooth surface. 

“I don’t know, Lo,” she said.

Loki smirked at the use of his nickname. While he detested the shorting of his own name (and hers usually), he knew she only called him that in fondness. Use of it now meant she would be coming with him. 

“How much time do you need?” Loki asked. 

“Give me a week. Man, I’m going to miss _Thor 2_ ,” she sighed, running a hand through her hair again. “Can you put an undetectable extendable charm on my purse?”

“Excuse me?”

Instead of answering him, Jess went into her room and came out with a rather large book. She handed it to him and said, “Read. Then charm my purse.”

She handed him the purse she carried on a daily basis, a thing of purple leather and brushed silver metal. 

“Lists. I need to make lists.”

She sat down at the desk with the computer and began to compile her lists. Loki, meanwhile, opened up the book and began to search for what she’d asked for. It only took him a matter of minutes to remember what exactly what she meant. Shutting the book, he grabbed her purse and set to work. 

* * *

  _Go and run through the hallways / And find your way to the door / You will end up like always / Back where you were before_  


_-Guster, “Fa Fa”_

* * *

 “I can’t believe we’re going to do this.”

They were standing in the park in the very spot Jess had found Loki the Cat in his Asgardian armor almost eight months prior. Loki had packed the armor in her purse and was wearing his Earth clothing of black jeans, grey t-shirt and black leather jacket. He allowed they might be welcomed better if they were dressed in the proper clothing— even if Jess insisted on wearing those blasted bright orange sneakers. (She had consented to dye her hair a normal, natural shade and was sporting a dark chocolate shade that was almost black.) 

“Believe it, Jessica,” Loki said, opening his palm to display the tiny arc reactor. “Did you give Dell and Benoit the sweets?”

“Yeah. I gave them to them last night,” Jess sigh with a sigh. “I forgot you could do magic and make them forget about me.” 

“I didn’t want to give them that option,” Loki admitted. “But, you were worried about them being worried about you…”

“I know. I think it best if they forget me. I mean, they’re like the only people I still talk to that care about my existence. God that is depressing. Out of the entire planet, only two people worry that I vanished off into Africa and never came back or contacted them again.”  

The story Jess had told her employers, the people at her grandfather’s home and the apartment complex was that she was traveling to Africa to do charity work. 

With his free hand, Loki reached down and grabbed her hand. She looked up at him in surprise. Her hand felt overly warm to him, which was likely due to her nerves. She’d been a nervous wreck for the past three days— even with her anxiety medication. 

“I care about your existence,” Loki said, feeling rather missish. “And this is right. You do not belong here.”

Loki looked up at the sky. Clouds were gathering above their heads quickly. 

“I belong where you’re from…I don’t understand.”

“And you might never,” Loki admitted. “Are you ready?”

“No.”

Loki gazed at her.

“Yeah. Fine.” She squared her shoulders, adjusted her purse, and took a deep breath. Then squeezed his hand till he couldn’t feel his fingers any longer. If she’d been Asgardian, she would have broken his fingers. “Ready when you are, Rose.”

“We will likely appear in front of SHEILD on Midgard. Hopefully,” Loki reminded her. She nodded. He could feel her pulse thudding within her hand as she clutched his. “Whatever you do, keep hold on me. Especially after we get there. I doubt they will shoot us on sight, but they will not be friendly.”

“Especially if you announce you’re burdened with glorious purpose,” Jess mumbled.

“I will not do that. I will tell them where I am from. They know of Thor, so they will know I am not a hostile.”

“Can I be Hostile Number 17?”

“No.”

“Damn.”

“Are you ready? If you are, I will begin to channel my magic,” Loki said, giving her hand a squeeze. He wanted to send some of his magic to her to clam her down, but he needed all his magic in order to open the door on the other side and connect to the Tesseract. 

“As I said before, ready when you are, Rose,” she said, sucking in a deep breath again. 

Loki quirked an eyebrow.

“Beam me up, Scotty?” she tried.

Loki nodded (he got that one) and turned his attention to the object in his palm. Concentrating on it, he began to allow his magic to flow into it. It began to glow— a bright, bright electric blue. Next to him, Jess sucked in a sharp breath and pressed herself to his said, gripping his hand even tighter. Loki continued to pour his magic into the tiny arc reactor till it began to burn bright white. It was becoming very hot and rose up off his palm as it burst into pieces. Loki grabbed Jess and pulled her closer to him and used his other arm to pull her flat against his front. 

The door was opening.

Soon, all the feelings of home— the tug, the pull, the caress— roped around Jess and himself in burning white light. The energy crackled and suddenly Loki felt his feet leave the ground and he was falling again, only this time he wasn’t alone and the fall was rough. Wind, light, heat whipped around them. Jess used her free hand and knotted it up in his t-shirt. He and Jess hurtled along, moving faster and faster. It was very unlike traveling through the Bifrost, yet similar at the same time. The light around them turned from white to blue again as they twisted and fell downwards. The more they fell, the more familiar everything began to feel for Loki.

No noise reached his ears.  

As fast as it began, it ended and he felt his feet connect with something hard and his knees buckled. He didn’t let go of Jess’s hand, but let go of her body. She instantly let go where she’d been fisting his shirt. He flicked his arm connected to the hand holding hers so she landed besides him as he crumbled to the ground.

“Oof,” Jess’s muffled voice sounded among all the other noise that quickly entered Loki’s ears suddenly. 

Guns were cocked, soldiers were moving and the Tesseract was crackling. Loki recognized the voices shouting at them, but chose to ignore them for the time being. 

“Are you in once piece?” Loki asked quietly, turning his head to the right.

“As me tomorrow.”

“I’m asking you now.”

“I think so. That was some ride,” Jess muttered. Loki felt her move but did not move himself. She lifted herself up onto her elbows and looked around, her eyes taking in where they were. “We’re here. And, uh, Lo…”

“What?”

“I think…” Jess stopped talking, turning around to look at something over her shoulder. “I think…we’re not the only ones coming through.”

* * *

_So, I’ll love whatever you become / And forget the reckless things we’ve done / I think our lives have just begun_

_-Muse, “Falling Away With You”_

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And so ends Deep In The Heart. There will be another installment, For What It’s Worth. Look for it to be posted next month. I still have three parts to write. It’ll take place during The Avengers movie and you’ll see some familiar faces.  
> Thank you for reading, the kudos and bookmarks!


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